Trust God

5Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

6in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3 (NIV)

 

We need to trust in the Lord with what is going on in our life all the time. It isn’t always about trusting God to do what we ask but to trust Him to do what is right because that will accomplish the most.

 

Our view of the situation may not be what is best for all that are involved. If we would get our answer the way we wanted, we could be selling ourselves short or selling others short. God may have better plans for us so let’s trust in the Lord to the point of trusting Him to work out the details and bring about the right outcome.

 

Why would we want to believe what we understand of the situation when God has so much more understanding of what is going on and what the future holds. Let’s lean on what He knows.

 

Let our ways be His and let Him lead us down the path He has planned. Ask Him to let us know when we are straying off that path that He has planned for us. It is the path that will give us the most we can get out of life. When we wander from the path we miss the blessings that were planned for that time.

Do You Want Control Of Your Life?

It is amazing how many people won’t make a commitment to God because they don’t want anyone telling them what to do. They want to have control over their own life. They even think those that are walking with God need a crutch. They are afraid they would lose control if they asked God into their life. This is so ironic because if you look around, you see people controlled by all sorts of internal and external “stuff”. A few that come to mind are substance abuse, activities, people, emotions.

When we consider substance abuse, we see  people that can’t function with whatever substance they have allowed to have control. There is alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. It is hard to imagine what kind of life this must be for them. They are missing the whole purpose and joy in life. They can’t function without it and they don’t function very well with it. Of course, they don’t see that. For some reason, they can’t see beyond themselves. They think what they do doesn’t affect those around them but while they are destroying themselves, they are hurting and sometimes destroying the very ones they should be loving.

We allow ourselves to sit in front of the TV, the computer, the games system, on our phone and listen and look at stuff that is doing us harm. We say it doesn’t affect us. I bet if we made a change, we would recognize the difference. The lives portrayed on TV is not reality. Most of what is viewed cannot benefit our life. The time we waste doing unproductive activities will do us no good. We use the excuse that we need to relax or escape for a time from the stresses of life. We need to take a good look at how much time is really needed for this and what type of material is being fed into our brains in order to escape.

Pornography has been noted for being more addictive than drugs and alcohol. The pornography that people allow into their life does so much more that people even realize. Marriage and homes are being broken and they can’t even see the cause. At its extreme, it will destroy one’s sex life when they believed it at one time was enhancing it. This is typical of Satan to entangle you in a lie. He invites you into something that you believe will help and then entangles you to where you see no way out and then it begins to destroy you.

We would probably not want to admit that other people control us. But how often do we explain our actions by telling someone what they did to us? How often do we allow what someone else did or said ruin our day or our mood? Why do we let individuals have that much power in our life?

This takes us to emotions. Some of our emotions come from the fact that we allow people to determine how we feel. We get into a state of mind and we don’t know how to change it. We turn to doctors and medication or just choose to wallow in the moment. We can choose to change how we feel.

We have a God that can overcome all of this for us. Yea, He wants control but who better to give it to? It is the only control that will bring us anything positive. If we need a crutch, God is willing to be that crutch. He is the only one that can hold us up during our healing and the only one that can bring complete healing. We are talking about a God that created the universe, the God that brought us into existence, the God that created us for a purpose. Where else can we get the most satisfaction?

This brings about another ironic point. When we give God complete control, that is when we really begin to feel like we actually have control of our life. Life becomes doable. We gain a joy that we never knew, a sense of being able to accomplish something, a purpose. We can now have a dream, a hope, a future. We now have something to feel good about. We will have more than we have ever hoped for or imagined could be possible.

For more reading, look at Addictions and Effects of Pornography

Which comes first the chicken or the egg? sin or bondage?

God gave us the Ten Commandments to keep us from bondage not to enslave us.

Ten Commandments: Exodus 20:1-21

“The Ten Commandments represent an ancient boundary stone” and they are not to be moved around to fit our lifestyle.

Proverbs 22:28

“Those who live beyond the boundaries will not only return to bondage, they will leave a well-trodden path for generations to follow in their footsteps.” “All bondage begins with sin.” “All bondage promotes sin.” Which comes first? The sin or the bondage? “The tie between generational bondage and generational sin is” an ongoing cycle. It begins when someone moves the stone and begins living by their “own set of rules.” It will only stop when “someone has enough courage to move back to the ancient boundary stone God ordained.”

Exodus 20:5-6

Taken from Beth Moore’s Bible Study Breaking Free

Weeds and Flowers

We can allow good things into our lives and bad things into our lives. When we have given our life to Christ, He will help us develop the good and help us get rid of the bad. This process will be different for each individual. The difference will be in how God wants to work in the individual’s life. It will depend on their past experience and what God wants to do in their life. The personality and character that the person has will also come into play. God created us and knows the best way to guide us. He has given us a free will and if we choose Christ, He will work to give us the best. The process will also depend on our willingness and commitment. With some, God will choose to take a bunch of obstacles out of our way at one time. With others, He may chose to take one at a time. Whatever way God chooses will work. Don’t compare your walk with what you see in others. Every one of us should be working on something if we are faithfully allowing God to work in our life. We will never achieve perfection this side of eternity so we all have progress to make.

We should be asking God to point out our strong areas so that we can develop those and use them to His glory. Don’t look at others and wish you were in that position. God has a special work for you and when you are ready, He will allow that area of your life to blossom like the flowers. We just need to ask Him daily what is expected of us. He will guide us throughout our day. We should be positive and display an attitude of Christ as we walk through our day wherever that is at this point in our life. If we walk in obedience where we are, we will be led where Christ wants us to be. He will lead us to fulfill the desires of our heart. We may not even clearly know what those desires are but when we get there, the joy and satisfaction will let us know we are in God’s will.

We should be asking God to show us our weakness, to remove any sin in our life that has crept in or never been removed, and to  help us in our daily walk to get rid of the things that hinder us and our purpose. If the bad is not removed, it will grow like weeds. If they remain long enough they get deeply rooted and they grow to become seed that continues to multiply. If we cut the bad stuff out as soon as it is recognized as bad, there is less of a chance of that happening. Get it out of there before it goes to seed.

Dandelions multiply quickly. If we allow them to go to seed they can fill a yard in no time. If we live in a development, they are probably a nuisance. We probably have to use weed killer and continue to keep them under control. This is how it should be with the bad things in our life, constantly keeping it in check. Bitterness, idleness, cheating, envy, and unforgiveness are just a few. If you live in the country, you may have grown accustomed to seeing a field of wild flowers. Dandelions may be something you enjoy. People eat the greens and the flower can actually look great when they cover a field. The good in our life can actually multiply in the same way. We can choose to fertilize and help it to develop. The things we do in our life and with our life will affect our life and those around us. We should be asking God continuously to help us keep the things in our life in order.

Life Is Not Easy

We don’t always know why things happen. God always has a reason for allowing things to happen and causing things to happen. There is always a lesson to be learned. It could be as simple as an attempt to get our attention or sparing us of something worse that could have happened. It could be to work in a situation that we may not be aware of and may never know this side of eternity. God has the bigger picture and can be trusted to use all that happens for His glory and our betterment. He is God.

God also has a way of teaching us because we don’t like to follow rules. Breaking rules has consequences. We may consider some rules to be trivial, but God tests us in little things to see if we can handle bigger stuff. Often times, if not always, we know what we did wrong.

It may be that we didn’t follow through on a promise or something we knew we should have done. We don’t always know the correlation between our disobedience and the consequences we face but we do know there are consequences to disobedience.

When things happen that we don’t want to deal with, we as humans tend to want to fluff it off and minimize its importance. God wants us to deal with things, do what is right, follow through. The more we do that, the more satisfied we will be with life, ourselves and with other people.

God will reveal the lesson to be learned if we ask Him. The quicker we learn, the less we have to face similar situations that try to teach us the same lesson. Life has consequences and we have rules for a reason. God’s rules are definitely for our protection and benefit. Following rules (especially God’s) and doing what is right always pays off. God gave us a mind and access to the Holy spirit to know the difference between what is right and our own foolishness.

Life is not easy. We get out of life what we put into it. Following God is not easy. Our relationship with God and our quality of life will amount to what we put into it. God is there. He is committed. He will not forsake us. It is our side of the relationship that falls short. The quality of our relationship is based on our level of commitment. He wants the best for us. It is our choice to accept His best or to settle for less than the best.