God's Love Can't Be Masked

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge God, and God will make your pathway straight” Proverbs 3:5 & 6 Today is a day of Resurrection and Abundant Life! I know in these days of Stay-at-Home, Self-Distancing, and masks, it may not feel so, but remember: Christ’s Resurrection happened, and Easter began in the darkness of night. I pray this blog finds you all well and safe. I’m reminded of this verse from Proverbs these days. We all try to find something, someone, some resource that we can trust in and lean upon. As numbers of cases and loss of life continue to increase, it can seem a little overwhelming. Let me offer this verse to you. It refocuses our hearts and minds in the One who cannot be overcome! Trust in the Lord. With all your heart. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty good at trusting the Lord with most of my heart most of the time, but that’s not what the verse calls us to do. We like to “hedge our bets.” We want to cross our fingers behind our backs – just in case. When we leap into our parents’ outstretched arms when first learning to jump into a pool, you need to really leap! If you don’t fully commit to the jump, you’ll fall short and go under. God is a Never-Failing God. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. We can Trust. We can leap. God is there and will always be with us – no matter what happens. So Trust God and God’s great love completely. The other day – O.K., in “pre-virus days”, I was helping a friend install a new handrail around his deck. Unfortunately, I was there because his wife had been leaning out over the old railing to fill a bird feeder, and the railing gave way. She took a rather chilly dip into the lake the deck stretched out over! The next line of the verse: “And do not lean on your own understanding”. We can “Lean” upon the Word of God – Jesus. (and the words about God; scripture). Our understanding is limited and often misdirected. God’s understanding is “Unsearchable.” (Isaiah 40:28). With eternal and All-Surpassing understanding, we can lean on the ever-faithfulness of God! What would it mean for us to turn each area, all areas of our lives over to God?! How more resurrective and grace-filled would our lives be if we “acknowledged God in all our ways” as the next line invites us to do! Living as a disciple is exactly what this means. As we continue to grow and mature as a disciple is to continually turn over more and more of our lives to Christ. The wonderful promise in verse 6 is that God will bring a sense of order, purpose, and meaning to our lives as we Give more and more of our trust to God; Lean less and less on ours and the world’s way of thinking, and acknowledge God in all areas of our lives! We will get through this time of fright and loss. Also, God’s love spreads faster than any virus ever could! And so, amidst the angst, uncertainty, chaos, and crisis of this time – know the power, purpose, and love of our All- Surpassing, Ever-Present, Never-Failing God!