With All of Your Heart

“5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your body
And refreshment to your bones.”
Proverbs 3:5-8

“28One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” 29Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; 30and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31“The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:28-31

There is not a Christian living who hasn’t gone through ‘dry spells’ when they didn’t feel that God was near, or that He was directing their steps. The phrase, “Leaving us to our own devices.” comes to mind, the idea that God gave us the Bible to show us how to live, the Spirit to live in us, and is now like the absent landlord of the parable who bought a piece of land, set workers to maintain it, and then traveled off to a far country.

It all comes down to faith, friends, in a way that you might not have thought of. Or you could be nodding your head, far ahead of me already: Faith in something seen is not faith. Remember Hebrews 11:1-
“1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

God is indeed working in every moment of our lives; we simply are limited in our vision. In our corrupt physical bodies we cannot appreciate the 99999999999.9999999999999999amount of work which God does every millisecond of Eternity. That is why we are commanded to ‘not lean on our own understanding’.

The dry spells? God knows why they happen. My guess is that they are opportunities to draw closer to Him, seek Him because the dry spells make us miss Him.

If you are trusting God ‘with your whole heart’, loving God ‘with your whole heart’, and leaning on faith, not your own understanding, my friend, don’t worry about the dry spells. Accept that God is in charge, directing your steps, my steps, and all the events taking place on the world’s stage. Just because we cannot understand all that He is doing, that doesn’t mean that He is not doing it. It just means that we must accept on faith that he is in control. What does God tell us all through His word? “Don’t Worry!”
It’s just like the song:
“Because He lives,
I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives,
All fear is gone.
Because I know
He holds the future
And Life is worth the living
Just
Because He lives.”