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 straight your paths.
be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
it will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
proverbs 3:5-8
change is not an event that i pursue. most often, you will find me escaping it's clutches in any way possible. but as life is life, the inevitable arrives and i must come out of hiding from this thing called change. from time to time life is pummeled by change. it is in this sort of pummeling that i find myself today.
as i consider the changes that lurk in the near future, i do realize that the majority are good and blessings that God has given me. for instance, we have been given the opportunity to buy a house, which is most obviously a gift that many do not receive. God has given us a great gift in being able to do so and i praise Him for the provision of a house. along with buying a home comes the great "fear of the unknown..." i laugh as i recall our home inspection a few weeks ago and the weight of responsibility that comes with owning a home. as we have gone through the process of buying this house God has given me great reminders. my heart has been strengthened in knowing that as much as do love this home, it is not my final destination. this house is not so much my ultimate and final home, no... it is a place for now, even if it is where i spend the rest of this current life of mine... if it is not perfect, if it has problems, my world is not crushed because all that i am is not entrusted in this current dwelling. God has called to mind the unseen when so much of my life at present is about the seen. "...as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen..." (2 Corinthians 4:18)
change is hiding out in the shadows of other things to come for us as well... i won't bore you with the details, but instead a few thoughts i have been mulling over. my default, when facing change or events that cause me to worry, is to figure out all the facts and how we are going to make it all work out. i try to understand all i can so that i don't have to worry anymore. this morning was a morning of worry and anxiety. my plans for life just weren't working out quite right in my mind and i was definitely not clear on how God was really going to make it all work out either. i kept trying to understand. if i could only figure out the plan and how it would all come together smoothly then i could get on with life and forget about this badgering anxiety.
i paused for a moment and tried to recall verses about trust and worry. the first that came to mind was the one above. trust in the Lord with all your heart... trust in the Lord with all your heart... words i have focused on often. however, this morning the second part of the sentence overwhelmed my heart... do not lean on your own understanding... simply, that is ALL i had been doing ALL morning. leaning on any kind of plan that i could figure out... and as i wasn't coming to many conclusions i wasn't leaning on much. i also was not acknowledging Him and trusting in the truth that He will continue to make the paths and plans of my life straight... even when in my own understanding, the paths seem very twisted and curvy (for some reason weaving mountain roads come to mind, complete with a hairpin turn here and there...)
quite simply at this point i do not understand how all that is in the future will work its way into a straight path. however, as a child of God who is called to trust, i cannot and i will strive to not depend on how i understand the situations at hand. God's plans work outside my complete understanding. i must not be grounded in how i understand the future. my comprehension falls so short of the mind of God. security and assurance are not found in my preparation, but in our Creator who has had it all planned out from the beginning.
