Proverbs 3:5–6 (NKJV) — 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
The first thing we must do to receive God’s guidance is to learn God’s truth. The second step is to follow His truth. The learning process takes a lifetime. We must learn God’s truth. Learning God’s truth is found in His Word the Bible. We must be willing to read the Bible. We spend years in formal worldly education. Children are forced to go to school either in a public, private, or home school. How much time is given to Christian education?
How can one trust God if he does not know God? We trust in many things. We really put our trust in others when we drive our vehicles on the road. We trust others (with caution) when we go into a crowd of people. We trust based on experiential knowledge.
Our trust in God comes from learning His Word. It also comes from experience. The more we learn and experience God the more we come to trust Him. Trust does not just come from head knowledge. It comes from the heart. It is not the result of reasoning; it is the result of believing. Paul wrote in Romans 4:3, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’” There were times Abraham leaned on his own understanding and he failed.
There is no wishy-washy belief and trust in God. We are to “trust in the Lord with all our heart.” PARTIAL TRUST IS NOT TRUST AT ALL. We see failure in many areas of life. We either trust God in all or we do not trust God at all. We must make a choice: follow our own understanding or trust in God.
This is where many professing Christians stand. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:18, “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” Belief in God, and understanding God is darkened by sin. There is spiritual blindness and a hardening of the heart.
The object of a wise person is God. Not just any god. The One True God. The Creator of all creation.
James 2:23, “And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God.”