What You Can Rely On

“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 (AMP)

During a tour at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a New York City woman mentioned that she was raising a type of cactus in a pot on her apartment balcony. Another tourist asked her how she kept from watering it too much, because the cactus would die if over watered. “I subscribe to the Tucson newspaper,” replied the New Yorker. “Every time I read that it rained in the desert, I give my plant some water.”

Now that lady indeed went to the source of knowledge. She didn’t guess, or water haphazardly. She knew she could trust and be confident in the desert rainfall report. She didn’t rely on her own insight or understanding, but rather went to the source of accurate information.

There is a spiritual parallel here. Proverbs 3:4-5 assures us we can lean on, trust in and be confident in the Lord, casting aside our own inadequate insight or understanding. If we do, he will prepare the life road ahead. I like the Amplified Bible translation where it says He will make “plain our paths.”

In geography, a plain is a relatively flat land with no steep paths to traverse. In carpentry, a plain is a tool that shaves the roughness of wood to make it smooth. It removes the roughness and turns it into shavings.

When I read this passage from Proverbs, I can visualize my God with a plain in His hand out front of my every step smoothing the path and turning my steep climbs into shavings that I no longer have to deal with. He makes my pathways in life straight and level.

If I can just get myself and my own understanding out of the way, I can trust Him to walk with me in whatever roads lie ahead.

by John Grant
Used by Permission

John Grant is a former Florida State Senator and is a practicing attorney

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