Proverbs 3:5-6 The Road Less Traveled

*This week we asked our writers to comment on their favorite verses of the bible. This is what they wrote.
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.   
– Proverbs 3:5-6

I think of this passage from Proverbs often, a small prayer to remind me who is in charge – or who should be. So much is packed into such a small amount of words. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. God wants only what is best for us, today and every day after. We all want control over our lives, and to stay directed at reaching our goals; be they big or small. Trusting someone else, even if that Someone created the entire universe, goes against how we seem to be wired as humans.

Sometimes Trust comes from experience, other times it’s a reckless decision to let go. We occasionally need to see a little of the good He has done first, then like a child putting their hand into their Father’s at the poolside, and let Him guide us into what seemed a moment before too frightening to consider. Our Lord will never harm us. He will only build us up.

More often than not, however, we lean on our own understanding. When I do this, and it’s not something He would choose for me, I feel a tight ball in my stomach, as if my whole body knows that it was wrong. When we go against His will, we never know what could have been, what challenges Jesus has in store for us to grow through, nor what blessings others have missed out on. 

In all your ways submit to him… For so long I allowed God into only a few corners of my life – how I treat others, church and prayer time. As the years unrolled I gave more control to Him, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes eagerly. Tithing, time, even my writing, and parenting; in doing so I’ve discovered more of God’s perfect plan for my life – even if I don’t always understand until I look back later and realize, Wow, look at what He did there….

And He will make your paths straight.  I have such an affection for Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken” with its famous last stanza

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Not conforming to the ways of this world but letting the hand of God lay out a path through the years so uniquely me or you that our inherent gifts, be they writing, art, parenting, entrepreneurship, youth, nature, politics, computers, organizational ability, charity, listening are encouraged and enhanced as a blessing, to many or a perfect few. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) by God for a purpose on this earth. To not try and walk the path He lays before us is to squander His gift to us, the world, and beyond. To walk this path, however, in His presence, we have to Trust Him to lead us and teach us and present opportunities along the way. He will never leave us alone in this walk. Because each of our roads less traveled are, and always will be, His road, too.



Pray

Holy Father, show us the road you would have us travel in our life, help us to trust, and make straight our path, today and every day until we see You in person at last. Amen.

Comments