“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
Proverbs 3:5–6 are, I think, two of the most precious verses in my life, in my story of walking with God. I come back to these verses over and over and over again, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Many people do. This is such a powerful exhortation, and I just want to pray directly through it, not only for my own life, but for your life. Let’s just pray these words together.
God, help us to trust in you with all our hearts, with all our hearts. God, I just think about how I want my kids to trust me. When I’m giving them instruction, telling them something that I know will be good for them. I just want them to trust me. God, I know you are a perfect Father. I am not a perfect father. Sometimes I want my kids to trust me, and then what I say is not good, but that never happens with you. You are totally trustworthy.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall make straight your paths.
This Verse Gives Us Trust In God
So help us to trust you with all of our hearts. Give us total trust in you. Help us not to trust in ourselves. Help us not to lean on our own understanding. God, our own understanding is not worthy of trust. It’s not trustworthy. Our own understanding is feeble and faulty. We lack understanding. We don’t get it. And we are often wrong, sometimes right. You are always right, so help us to trust in you with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding. In all our ways, we pray, please help us to acknowledge you.
Proverbs 3:5–6 Helps The Word Be In Us
Help us to abide in you, to focus on you, to be in your Word, your Word to be in us, to walk with you in prayer, to have our mind and our hearts just constantly fixed on your ways and your Word and your will in our lives. In all our ways, please help us to acknowledge you.
Help us not to forget you. Help us not to ignore you. And help us to acknowledge you, and we trust that as things are true, as we’re trusting you with all our hearts, we’re not leaning on our own understanding, we’re acknowledging you in all our ways, we trust that you will make our paths straight. You promise it. You promise it, oh God. Say in your Word here in verse six that you will make our paths straight as we trust in you with all our heart and acknowledge you in all our ways.
Proverbs 3:5–6 Guides Us In Our Lives
So may it be so, God. Lead, guide, direct us in our lives, families, work, church, and everything we do. Please help us to trust you with all our heart, lean not on our own understanding. In all our ways help us to acknowledge you. We believe, we trust that you will make our paths straight. May it be so, we pray in Jesus name, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
