Trusting God with All Your Heart

“Trust in and rely confidently on the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know and acknowledge and recognize Him, and He will make your paths straight and smooth [removing obstacles that block your way].” (Proverbs 3:5-6, AMP)

I grew up in a Christian school all the way up through the fifth grade. At North Shore Christian School, every morning we would stand, say the pledge of allegiance, sing “God Bless America,” pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and say the school’s Bible verse, Proverbs 3:5-6. I think in many ways, that was one of the first ever verses I ever burned into my young memory.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. For six years of my life, that was how I started my school day. What a foundation and a truth to stake a young life to!

In so many ways, those two simple verses are such a deep and precious encouragement to the Christian walk. It is a quick and concise direction for living our lives before the Lord in dependence, trust, and honor.

Trust in the Lord. The word used here for trust is a bold one. It implies we can put our confidence in the Lord– we can build our lives on Him, not fearing that something could befall us in the Father’s hands. We can put our whole weight on Him, giving Him everything; our cares, our worries, anxieties, hopes, dreams, aspirations, secrets. Everything. Trusting in the Lord should never give us reservations. He has never lost a sheep committed to His care. He has never had one plucked from His hand. The Lord is not a fairweather friend, or a careless lover. We can lie completely on His grace and be securely held.

With all your heart. This part seems so obvious, but it’s something we humans struggle with. How many things do we actually do with our whole hearts? Do we love our brother as ourselves? Do we pursue everything we love with 100% of everything we have? We should acknowledge that this pursuit of trusting the Lord with all our hearts does not require a perfect love. What it does ask of us is to have a child-like trust in Him– that we should aim for a heart and life that does not consciously harbor unbelief or rejection for the things of God. 

That means there is no acknowledgement of God, but a decision to not be serious about Him until such and such a time. Not for the Christian. You cannot love God and reject Him in your lifestyle. You cannot claim to live by grace and unbelief. Our whole heart must be committed to this life of being made sanctified and righteous, asking God to convict us of our sin and turn away from it.

And lean not on your own understanding. When we trust in the Lord with all our hearts, we need to put away our understanding of what is possible. God is sovereign and able. He will take care of those who lean on Him. Maybe not in the way we think He should or anticipated He would, but in the way we need. We look to God for care and sufficiency. We don’t need to rely on our intelligence, our survival instinct, our wealth, talents, or prowess– although those are all God-given and good things– but we do need to rely on the Lord. He is the Creator, the Savior, and the Provider. There is nothing outside of His sufficiency. We don’t need to feel anxiety over yielding control to Him. 

He is worthy of our trust. And a half-trust is still a failure to trust in God. He is deserving of the whole gambit of it– allowing it to be complete, to the point that we would lean our whole selves onto Him.

In all your ways, acknowledge Him. Allow God into your every day. Submit to Him in the mundanity of life– the chores, commutes, grocery lists, and interactions. That’s not to say that we need to mystically ask God about every little thing like whether or not we buy strawberries or apples at the store. But it is to say that we should get into the habit of reflexively using our time to be with the Lord. Maybe I’m not asking God for counsel on what eggs to buy, but I can pray my way through the store as I make my way through the aisles. I can worship Him on the drive home, where no one hears how off-key I sing.

It means in all the ways of my little life, I will give Him that pre-eminance. In any way I can, and any matter at hand, that God will be my first place to turn. 

And He will direct your paths. That’s not a you do this for me, I’ll do this for you sort of barter. It’s a cause and effect promise. If you trust in the Lord with all your heart, you will begin to learn to not lean on your own understanding. As you trust God in such a way that you lean completely on Him, you begin to live a life that acknowledges Him in all things. When you trust in, lean on, and acknowledge the Lord in all your ways, then He will direct your path. 

There is no way to separate those realities. Trusting in God in such a way that you live in full submission to His will and scriptures, can assure us that God will direct our steps and that we will walk in a way that glorifies Him. That doesn’t mean that our work or our acknowledgement is what is contingent on God’s blessing. God will bless those He chooses to bless, but it does mean that those who believe in Him and desire more of Him will trust Him.

What it all boils down to is that God is worthy of our trust. The glory and reverence He is due demands our full trust in Him. It requires us to live a life that recognizes His supremacy in all things, with all our heart. Praise Him, that He would invite us to be in submission to Him, that He would care for us so deeply that He would see each of us and extend His grace and direction. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Put away that need to control what is rightfully God’s. Honor God in all you do. He is worthy of that devotion and adoration from His creation.