Trust the Lord with all your heart.

(Proverbs 3:5)

A very sure command of our faith, which is the basic foundation of our walk in Him.

The scriptures tell us the father of our faith Abraham believed (trusted) in God and his trust was counted to him as righteousness. What a good place to start our discussion this afternoon. The Bible has a hall of fame of all those who trusted God in all their lives in practical ways and the Bible in the Hebrews chapter 11 calls them the hero’s of faith. Starting with Abraham all of these hero’s needed to live out their declaration of faith in many practical aspects of their walk. It is very interesting that the verse 5 of the book of proverbs says trust Him with all your heart. This raises the question; can I trust Him with half of my heart? Or what is this word saying to me and you today? The second question that comes to me is if I do not trust the Lord with all of my heart what happens to the rest of my trust? Well the verse has not left us barren, it continues to say… “And lean not on your own understanding;” Wow what a deep revelation of His truth in this one verse.

This tells me when I do not fully or whole heartedly trust Him, I begin to trust or lean on to my own understanding.  Now where does my own understanding come from? It comes from the original sin, which was partaking of the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil. “My own human reasoning”. This is how my ways are defiled before my God. This part of my being having been defiled by the Adamic rebellion cannot accept God’s ways to be better than my own. It is through this act of unbeleif that many of our best promises seem to be delayed or hindered and that through our works of the flesh.

God’s word tells us that we all have certain promises through Christ’s accomplished work on the cross, and if we lean on His cross and the work of His cross they will manifest in our lives in their own times. God does all things according to His timetable and not ours and all his promises are Yee and Amen in Christ. When we want to bring them on before their due season we create much hardship for us and others by not trusting Him to fulfill His own promises to us. His son for example came exactly when it was called the fullness of time not sooner no later than His own time. When we want to accomplish those promises to us in our own understanding and by our own efforts we actually complicate things to our own harm.

One of the worst enemies of our walk with God is our human impatience in waiting on God who is the most patient being in this side of heaven.

The worst thing we can do is to lean on flesh (Our Own Understanding). When we trust our own ideas or the ideas of others for our lives we are about to have a shipwreck. Abraham had a promise from God at the age 75 to be called the father of many when he had but a 65 year old wife and a name like Abram. Well he and Sarah waited and waited until one day at age 86 Sarah’s flesh had a rude awakening to be the guide for her husband. She said why don’t you take my made Hagar and go into her and give children to me through her. Well the father of our faith instead of going to God or fully trusting The Lord who gave him his promise says yes to his wife and tries to accomplish God’s promise through flesh.

Oh what a deep mistake!!!

The whole world is suffering for this one mistake. Who became Abrams counselor? The arm of the flesh of his own 76 year old mate.  An heir with him of God’s promises.

Well the scriptures tell us in Genesis the 16^th chapter that Hagar the made servant of Sarai became pregnant and soon enmity rose between them too and that Sarai asked permission to deal harshly with the innocent maidservant who had become the means of their carnal choices. As Sarai treats her harshly the word says Hagar fled to the desert weeping in agony. Yet the Angel of the Lord the Bible says met her, which was Christ appearing in the form of an Angel and gave Hagar promises of the birth of Ishmael and his future characteristics and blessings.

Here we are encountered by The God who sees us the One  Who sees us in our misery and gives us promises in our lowest state of our lives where no one else even our closest people like spouses might not see or understand where we are spiritually. Here Hagar called Him
“You are the God who sees”

The God who sees the afflicted soul in the agony of the wilderness of her misery is the only One who is able to extend a hand and save. That is why the name of her son was called Elohim who hears or “Ishma-El”. Through this promise of future blessing the Angel of the Lord sends her back to finish her part in her obedience to her mistress. But we see again she is the bearer of a promise that only God can fulfill in His own time to her and only by His strength and in His own way.

Well we read in Genesis the 18^th chapter that in fullness of time according to life God visits Abram and Sarai to fulfill His own promise to them by giving them both the promise child  Isaac.

Is God Late?

Not at all. The Bible in Genesis 21: 1 says according to the timing of God the promise child came. Not a day sooner nor later according to time of life… Gen.18:10

Oh that we would learn to wait for His timing for all things! The word in Genesis the 21^st chapter continues to say in verse 8 that Isaac was eventually weaned from milk and a big party was given for him and it was there that Ishmael and Isaac began to quarrel and Sarah saw that the slave woman’s son was scoffing her son and asked Abraham to cast out the son of the bondwoman and his mother.

This is where the story gets very interesting guys.  Is Abraham now going to listen to her again or is he going to let Ishmael remain in the house? Well this time the father of our faith makes a decision to go to God and inquire from above. Surprisingly enough the Lord says to Abraham “ Yes Abraham this time you are to listen to this weak vessel your wife and you are to send them away and I will bless them”

Wow what a shock to Hagar!!!

Poor soul! What about her promises?

Was not God’s Angel who told her years ago before the son was born he would be a man of many blessings and descendents? Then where is the God of her promises again? And after all was not Mr. Abraham the man of faith a rich man? Now he has sent them away with one jar of water and some dry bread to the wilderness? What about giving her child support? What about alimony? Hagar now thinks (In her own Understanding)wasn’t God’s promises going to come through Abraham a rich man? It was as though God had failed her again. Don’t you and I sometimes feel exactly like her? I thought through so and so and through this and that God was going to bless me with? See this is what the Lord wants to break off of us.

“ Trust the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on to your own understanding” Prov 3:5 But the Lord is saying stop crying out your own addenda’s to me to fulfill My Own Promises to you. Stop figuring My ways out. Let Me do what I see best for you in My own ways.

The problem with most of us is this leaning on our own human reasoning to see God provide for us and to fulfill His own predestined promises for us. Abraham and His entire household including the Egyptian made Hagar, all learned that God’s ways were not their own and that His ways were higher than their own understandings.

The scripture in Genesis 21:16-20 says the angel told her in worst time of her disappointment with the Lord that He has heard the cry of her son and opened up her eyes to see the well of water and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad to drink.

You see there is always a well of water in the wilderness of our afflictions to carry us through to the promises of God for our lives given to us by Him alone. No desert is beyond His reach when we walk with Him in trusting His plan to accomplish them for us.

The secret is trusting in Him and not in us.

Have you ever thought that if God is faithful in fulfilling His promises to an Egyptian bondwoman’s son, how much more He is towards those who trust in His Own Son for fluffing His promises to them? If a well of water is present in the wilderness of their affliction would there not be one on yours and mine? It is our unbeleif in mistrust that has blinded our eyes. And why do you think His own prophets like Elijah in the time of famine had to go to different sources even supernatural provision of a an angel or a crow and at the end a destitute widow in Zaraphat? Weren’t all these to make His own trust Him and not their own understanding so that the rest of proverbs 3: 6 too would come to pass in their lives?

Since verse 6 says it in this way and I quote.

“In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Pr.5:6)

In all your ways the word says and not in some and our paths He says not path.

If we study God’s ways and are willing to commit ourselves into His hand in complete trust, He will accomplish all His promises in our lives according to His own timetable in His own ways. Prophet Elijah’s three and half year sustenance in the famine of Samaria is a clear indication of the methods of His provision in the last three and half year of the tribulation. His prophetic church must stop figuring God’s ways of providing for His own during this time of great trial and testing. We must trust that just like in prophet Elijah’s time when others like the king was in plenty and ease there were 7000 others like him that were sustained by God in supernatural ways. We must pray that grace would be given to us to fully trust Him in all our ways and acknowledge Him for all things.

May he extend grace to us in these difficult times to truly trust in fullness of His ability to sustain us and to complete His work in and through us.     May God bless us all.