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. Proverbs 3:5-6
Wisdom is not a door, but a pathway. That means, growing in wisdom is a journey that takes time and effort. In other words, wisdom is not an event, it is a process.
When Solomon says trust in the Lord, he is calling us to depend on God. The word trust here means to lie face down, helpless. It pictures throwing oneself in complete reliance on another. In other words, we are to stake everything we are on the promises of God. We are to relinquish all trust in ourselves, even to the depth of our being – our hearts.
It’s the idea of a child standing on the side of a pool and his dad tells him to jump in. This requires total trust, even in the midst of his fears. That’s what God invites us to do with him. To bet all that we have on him.
What does it look like to trust him? It looks like acknowledging him in all your ways. This means we seek him to be our guide in all areas of our lives. It looks like rejecting earthly wisdom—which tells us we need to look out for number one. So we don’t trust in our own understanding. In fact, we are to reject the idea that we have any wisdom of our own. We need to humbly admit we know very little about how life works.
Walking down the path of wisdom means we daily seek insight, pursue God in his Word, engage in self-examination, remind ourselves of the gospel, and endure suffering. These daily practices help us entrust more of our hearts to God. That’s because these practices help us acknowledge him in all our ways.
The goal is that God will make our paths straight. What does that mean? Does it mean we will no longer experience hardships? No, because we live in fallen world and we still struggling with remaining sin. Making our paths straight means God will continue to lead us through all the twists and turns of life. Remember, Jesus declared that he himself is the path (John 14:7). And Jesus promises to be our Shepherd who walks with us through even the darkest valleys (Psalms 23:4).
The ultimate goal is not to have a path that only leads to comfort and ease and prosperity. The ultimate goal is to walk with God in this life until we see God in the next. Jesus is wisdom. So, to walk in wisdom means we walk with Jesus until we see Jesus. The more you can delight your heart in the unconditional love and faithfulness of God, the more you will trust him. And even if your path seems incredibly crooked, the promise of God is that one day you will look back and find that because of Jesus, your path was made straight because it led you to him.
