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Straight Paths.


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)

          This is one of those beloved-behated passages about God’s provision. We quote it with such enthusiasm, but when it comes to actually living it out, it’s hard. Trust in the Lord? Sure, yes, of course! Until things aren’t going well. Then we say, “Uh, Lord? What’s going on?”  
        With all our heart? Keeping in mind that heart doesn’t mean emotions. It means will. Trust with every ounce of will-power you have, even when it’s not easy? Um. The good news with that one is that every ounce right now may be less than every ounce ten minutes or a year from now. Trust is like a muscle. It gets stronger with use. 
        And this may be the worst. Trust even when you don’t understand. I’ve had conversations with God about this one: 
          “God, I don’t understand.”
         “You don’t need to.”
          “But God, you don’t understand, I don’t understand!” (And yes, I recognize how ludicrous that sounds.) 
          Oh, and if the understanding part isn’t the worst, submitting must be. And it’s not submitting in one area. It’s submitting in all of them. All the time. Bow the knee. State your petition and your desires, then bow the knee no matter how God responds. That one hurts. 
          A few years ago, a friend shared a meme that showed the paths taken by different kinds of dogs as their owners walked them. The owner’s path was straight, but while some dogs stayed with the owner, others wandered within a few feet of the owner, and still others were all over the place. I think the last might have been a Golden Retriever, but I’m not sure. I’m convinced Shibas are even worse. 
          I suspect that what most often makes our paths “not straight” isn’t so much the terrain. It’s not the path. It’s our being Golden Retrievers and Shibas, insistent on chasing every leaf, plastic bag, and critter; smelling every blade of grass, and stubbornly saying, “No, this way. I want to go this way!” But if we trust, really trust God, the will power will be there even if the understanding is not, and submission will be natural. Then it will be easy to make your paths straight because we’ll be walking along Someone who knows where He’s going. Even if the path curves and switches, it’s still straight. Easy to say. Tough to do.

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