Walking in the Spirit

"Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths." Prov. 3:5-6 amp This vs is key in knowing how to be directed and led by the Lord. The first vs tells us not to lean on our own understanding. There will be many times in life when we simply cannot understand or fathom circumstances but that is not our job, we are to put our trust and confidence in Him to lead and guide us through the dark places when we cannot see. Trying to reason it all out in our minds, trying to find a solution will do nothing for you except to incite worry, anxiety and fear (Luke 12:29)! And doing that is also dangerous as you have taken the situation into your own hands which means God will say "Ok you know best...you do it!" He then takes His hands off the situation and leaves you in your miry clay of carnality...until you are willing to humble yourself and admit "Ok I'm not able to do this I do need Your help and guidance!" The next vs tells us how! In all your ways know...we need to know and understand who God is! By having a personal relationship with Him we learn from experience (and from the Bible) about God's nature and character! We learn from experience that He will never leave us alone or forsake us...that He loves us and helps us through every difficult time in life. It's this personal "knowing" that reminds us that He will never let us down and He will never let us go no matter how hard it is (John10:28). Recognize...this is a discerning - being watchful to see where the Lord is moving! If a door stays closed, He's not moving there! Don't try and force it open, leave it alone and keep watching to see what He is doing! God will often speak to us through insight and inspiration or ideas which just "pop" into our minds! THEN we must... Acknowledge Him...this means to acknowledge His Lordship and putting Him in first place! It means we go to Him FIRST to get His approval, interpretation and the next step. A side note here He NEVER gives us the whole picture at once... only one step at a time! Not impetuously and hastily running off to do our own thing which will always lead to frustration. Some ways or ideas might seem brilliant and may even be a God given vision or dream but without His guidance, following a dream out of its perfect timing will be soul wrenching as your plans will fail (Gal. 6:9)! Imagine if Noah got everyone on the ark a year too early? The vision was correct, he had heard right, he had prepared everything but he still had to patiently wait for God's perfect timing. Interpretation (one of the Holy Spirit's roles) is a huge part of wisdom and it is only given to those who take the time to seek and search it out. It is digging and digging until you find the answer no matter how long it takes. Those that give up easily will NOT find it (Prov. 25:2; Dan. 2:22; Isa. 45:3; Luke 11:8). But once found it is a very sweet and satisfying fruit! Doing it your way will always be the long way, the unfulfilled and frustrating and often devastating way...doing it God's way will always lead to life and life more abundantly bringing blessings, success, joy, peace and fulfilment in every part of your life. (Deut. 30:19; John 10:10).