Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding: in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3 vs.5-6
..in all your ways acknowledge him
In Psalm 63 v.1 David writes
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
And in Psalm 139 v.23-24 (ESV)
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
As I read these words I see a man who lives out the call in Proverbs 3 to acknowledge the LORD in all his ways.
David, although he is described as a man after God’s own heart certainly did not lead an easy life. Saul’s reaction to David being anointed king meant years of waiting and hardship before he came to the place to which God had called him as a teenager and following the title of Psalm 63 – A Psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah – the words it contains were probably written while he was on the run from Saul.
His adultery with Bathsheba and his related murder of Uriah caused the latter years of his reign to be dogged by family in-fighting and, for a period, effectively civil war as Absalom rebelled against him. The immediate, penitential response to his sin is recorded for us in Psalm 51 but, I have a strong sense that the words from Psalm139 may well have been his daily, urgent prayer to God as he acknowledged the amazing grace that had been poured out upon him, epitomised in Nathan’s words ‘The LORD has taken away your sin.’ 2 Samuel 12 v.13.
In that sense, although our sins and the difficulties we face in our daily lives are very different from these two specific areas that David experienced, we too are recipients of God’s abundant and amazing grace and so we need to ask ourselves ‘do I acknowledge God in all my ways’? I find that a challenging question because in the business of life it is all too easy to forget the words that David addressed to God as he gave thanks for the abundance of gifts that the people had brought for the building of the Temple.
‘Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.’ 1 Chronicles 29 v.14.
The gifts of grace which we have received far outstrip the gifts given for the Temple. Do we have a sufficient sense of the magnitude of those gifts so that we acknowledge God, the giver of grace, in all our ways, often, and from overflowing hearts?
The promise to those who do is clear direction through the maze that is everyday living and we shall reflect on that blessing tomorrow.