Day 16

Have you ever asked someone for directions and they respond by detailing every landmark and minute detail, and although you’re trying your best to pay attention, you know you’ll never remember every detail? Then, when they’ve finished their lesson in cartography, you simply ask for the address and use your maps app on your phone.

Although detailed directions are helpful, using our GPS makes it less likely that we will get lost or forget how to reach our destination.

Sometimes we approach God for the detailed directions to our destiny when the most helpful information would come by trusting Him for the next step at the right time. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

This verse gives us the key to arriving at the destination God desires for our lives: trust. Divine direction is more about the submission of our hearts than it is about discovering the will of God. Because when our hearts are in a healthy place, we will trust in God’s plan and patiently wait for Him to speak.

The image of making our path straight could be expressed by the colloquialism, “The road will rise to meet you.” The idea the writer of Scripture is expressing is when we trust God with our whole heart, not based on what we see or what we think is best; God will reveal our next step in His perfect timing. The path will straighten out in front of us; the road will rise to meet us. Notice that it’s God who will be the one to straighten our path. Our job is to simply align our hearts with God’s heart and keep moving forward.

Fasting has a way of positioning our hearts in the right place. When we are denying some of our most fundamental desires in pursuit of God’s presence, we are declaring in an emphatic way that God is the most important thing in our lives. We are choosing to trust Him, despite our understanding.

With hearts focused on God, we don’t need to know every turn and landmark on the journey; we just need to trust and keep walking, knowing God will take care of every detail and lead us on the right path every time.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”