With all your heart

"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."Proverbs 3:5-6

Proverbs is an experienced father teaching his son how to live, and this is the central advice of the whole book: trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't lean only on your own understanding. Notice there are two supports competing for your weight: understanding, which needs to grasp everything before taking the step, and trust, which walks even without the full map.

The verse doesn't tell you to switch off your brain. The Bible praises wisdom from beginning to end. It tells you not to make your brain your only support. Because our understanding sees as far as the corner, and God sees the whole road, including the curves that look like detours today and that years from now you'll call the route.

The proof is in one of the most loved stories in the Bible: Joseph, sold by his brothers, jailed unjustly, forgotten. Thirteen years of curves that made no sense at all. In the end, governor of Egypt, saving from famine the very family that sold him. His line sums up the whole verse: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good". Not one curve was wasted.

"In all your ways submit to him". All of them: in the big stuff and on an ordinary Tuesday. In practice it's this simple: before deciding, one second of "are you coming with me?". And today's challenge: take ONE decision that's keeping you up at night and hand it over formally: "Lord, I can't see the whole road; make this path straight". Then take the step you can take today.