Are you looking for the right way to go? Do you long for direction in your life? Do you have a tough choice ahead of you and need good counsel? Would you like to know if you are going down the correct path for your life?
We all need guidance and direction from time-to-time. Our knowledge of the various paths can be very limited. Sometimes we think we know what we are getting into, only to find out after the fact there was much we didn’t know. It can be tough making decisions with only partial information.
There are many avenues for obtaining information. We can perform research through books or online. Although, we must be careful to gather information from creditable sources, whether online or in books. We can also interview or question people who have already gone down the path we are looking. Again, we must be careful to find creditable sources. Not everyone we talk to will be truthful about the pathway or the end result. We must remember, they are telling us about one perspective.
A prudent person will use all of the above listed avenues, do some critical thinking and compiling of information, and they will ask God for guidance. God will provide the necessary guidance when we ask. He will make it clear whether we are to follow a specific path or not.
Just like our Scripture today states, God will make our paths straight. Though we can blindly ask God to guide us, I believe He wants us to do a little leg work of our own as well. He wants us to weigh out the positives and negatives of our options and ask Him for guidance. He may very well tell us to go down the path that appears to have more negatives. Remember, He knows the outcome already. So, if He is clearly telling you to go down one path or another, trust Him.
Today’s Scripture doesn’t tell us to not have an understanding. It does say that we are not to lean on our understanding. What does it mean to lean? It means to put more weight on one thing over another. For instance, when we lean on a fence, we are putting our weight on it to relieve some of the weight on our feet. So, the Scripture is saying, don’t put more trust in your own understanding than you put in God’s.
I pray we all put our trust in God. I pray we lean more on God than we do ourselves. I pray each of us will do our research and ask God for guidance to make the best decisions. Do your research. Be careful to us creditable sources. Ask God for guidance. Trust God will point you down the best path.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Marty Pressey 