Rev. Don Campbell

THOUGHT FOR TODAY, JUNE 10, 2018: TRUSTING GOD IN THE LITTLE THINGS OF LIFE

“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” (Prov 3:5-6, ESV). Sometimes we don’t ask for God’s guidance because we are confident in our own understanding. Solomon did not say, “Trust God in the big things, but take care of the little ones yourself.” It is often a series of little decisions that result in big troubles. Trusting in our own understanding, we often travel a winding, torturous road, when we could walk on straight paths.

David wrote, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you” (Psa 32:8-9).

Some commentators believe that the Lord is speaking in these two verses. Everything on both sides of the verse is David speaking of his guilt and forgiveness. His struggles with sin (vv.3-4) and his experience of God’s forgiveness (v.5) qualified him to teach sinners God’s ways.

It is not the things a speaker learned in a preacher training school, a college, a university, or a seminary that resonates most with struggling sinners, but the life-lessons learned when God had to take him to the woodshed for instruction.
David, who had struggled with guilt within for nearly a year before Nathan the prophet came to bring his guilt to light, wrote, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness” (vv.12-14).