#7 in FAITH & HOPE: Living in the Balance of Wisdom and Revelation
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He shall direct your paths.”
As you acknowledge God, you will find the straight path God is laying out before you. He is not waiting on you to acknowledge him before he leads you. We must change the way we think so we can perceive where and how he is leading us. I promise you he is trying to lead you, now you must be willing to acknowledge him.
The Hebrew word for “acknowledge” is yada. This word means:
know
perceive
consider
be acquainted with
declare
to make oneself known
to reveal oneself
The last two are interesting. The first few make sense, but the last two go a bit deeper. To acknowledge God is to make yourself known to him or to reveal yourself to him. In other words, be honest with God and reveal your innermost thoughts to him.
These aspects of “acknowledge” indicate confession and repentance. Both of which are mind-renewal exercises and changes of the heart.
When seeking to perceive God’s leading in your life, you must be honest with him AND yourself. You must be willing to open your heart and admit to yourself where you currently are. You must be willing to recognize where you’re self-reliant, where you are trusting in your own strength, where you are doubting God, where you are trapped in sin, as well as any number of things that may be keeping the eyes of your heart from hearing him and seeing the steps he’s laying before you.
There’s a shift that happens in your capacity to see, hear, and follow God when you are willing to set aside your logic and trust that God has a better way. This is true repentance, this is having a true change of heart.
“Leaning not to your own understanding” is not an invitation to live ignorantly in blind faith, it is clear instruction to find out how God thinks about a matter and apply his logic to your life no matter how much you want to do it your own way. We are not ignorant of his ways, we have his Word which tells us what he expects and how he thinks about everything.
If you want to see fruit and success in specific areas of life, like relationships, finances, health, and purpose, find out what God says about those areas and choose to live and make choices that are consistent with his logic rather than yours. Make a commitment to his Word and his ways above your desires.
Find out what he says and believe it, no matter what you have to admit to yourself along the way. Commit to his Word above any other source of information and instruction, no matter how appealing it may sound.
To lean not on your understanding and acknowledge him is to seek his wisdom and align your thinking and choices with his perspective. You may find that you disagree with God as you are seeking to be led by him, what will you do then? When that happens, don’t worry, it is safe to acknowledge your self-reliance and ask him for help.
As you plant and nurture his logic and wisdom in your heart, above your own emotions and logic, his kingdom will manifest in your life. His kingdom will bear fruit beyond anything you could make happen on your own. His kingdom is in you. It is spiritual. His kingdom in you is an unlimited field of potential fruit and power just waiting to be cultivated. You can nurture it by aligning your heart, emotions, thoughts, and choices with his logic above your own understanding, and your paths will become straight. You will see the blessing of the Lord!
This is just one aspect of the video above, as you with it, identify areas of life that aren’t working and be willing to acknowledge his ways so you will see kingdom fruit and God will be glorified in your life.
Clint and Sara Byars
Forward Ministries
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