Hour By Hour, Day By Day :: Deeper Devotion

Hour By Hour, Day By Day

December 4, 2008

By Glenn Ansley

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Just as the intoxicated man fails to walk a straight line for the cop, too many Christians are far from the straight and narrow path commanded by the Lord. As hard as we try to walk it, those of us that do not have the guidance of the Lord will be disillusioned by the impurities of sin. A straight and narrow path will not only be difficult to walk, it will be all but impossible to find. Proverbs 3:5-6 gives directions from the Lord to those that desire to walk the straight path.

You must learn to put all of your emotions, pride, and confidence in the trash without looking back. If you wish to walk through life with the Lord, there will be no room for such expressions of self. To “trust in the Lord with all your heart” means to seek Him in every decision. You must not do anything without His leading. The minute you make a single choice absent from the counsel of God, you have stepped off the path of faith and into the wilderness of self. In the garden of Gethsemane, before being nailed to the cross for your sin, even Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42). The first thing you must do in order to walk the straight path daily is to trust fully in God. If you continue to base even the simplest of decisions on your own understanding, you will only walk further away from the path of the Lord.

The Lord has promised to make your paths straight if you will only trust in Him and acknowledge His handiwork in your life. This is a conscious effort that we must continually make hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute. It begins with prayer in the morning and should end with prayer in the evening. My guess is that you are currently within this time frame. My prayer is that you will stop where you are, acknowledge the Lord for who He is, and ask Him what His will is for you this hour.

But he who listens to me shall live securely,
And shall be at ease from the dread of evil.
� Proverbs 1:33 �