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
…with all your heart
Commitment is something which often seems low on people’s agendas in our present age. It shows itself in a variety of ways. When asked to take on a task it is agreed with the unspoken thought ‘OK but if something better turns up I will move to that.’ Another way that this manifests itself is in an unwillingness to commit to the long haul in a particular task for fear that it might hinder my freedom tying up, as it may, some specific time in a week to serve others. We have to be committed to our paid work but we like, for understandable reasons, to guard our non-work time and to be free to please ourselves rather than being bound to others in that time.
This may sound a bit harsh and if it does please forgive me but one of the ongoing problems in many areas of Christian work is that of finding sufficient leaders to serve by being involved in regular ministries which do undoubtedly limit one’s freedom.
Proverbs 3 vs.5-6 tells us that the problem lies in the heart.
The writer is very direct. Trust in the LORD with all your heart. Yesterday we considered the one in whom we are called to trust. The Sovereign LORD. If we have acknowledged that it is he who gives us all that we have and supremely forgiveness, life and hope through the death of our Saviour on the cross then he is infinitely worth trusting in. Indeed we would be foolish to do otherwise.
But how are we to trust? This is where the rubber hits the road. ‘with all your heart’.
Physiologically the heart is absolutely fundamental to life. Once it stops we die. Likewise the attitude of our hearts (in a spiritual sense) towards the LORD is crucial. Are we half-hearted or whole hearted? Are we burdened as was our Saviour when he looked with compassion at the crowds who were like sheep without a shepherd – a description of humankind which is so dramatically demonstrated in our world today?
Last night I watched a repeat episode of ‘Saving Lives at Sea’ the nerve tingling documentary about the work of the RNLI. The actual footage of rescues is dramatic but perhaps most telling is the reaction of those who have been saved from what they saw was immanent death. Their thanks to the crews knew no bounds and one young lady who was not herself rescued but was involved in keeping a casualty afloat until the lifeboat arrived offered herself as a volunteer crew member changing the whole direction of her life. That is commitment.
We have a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has saved us from death, can we do other than trust in the author of our salvation with all our hearts yielding our whole lives to his service?