Leaning

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).

The path we are hiking on brings us to a deep gorge filled with sharp rocks and raging water. A rickety wooden bridge, with missing boards, is strung across. We look at the bridge and decide it is too risky. Then we notice a newly built concrete bridge a little ways away. That's the one we want! That's the safe one.

Full of confidence, we walk to the middle of the solid bridge and lean over the side to look at the swirling water below. The temporary railing gives way—and we fall to the depths. Standing on a sure foundation, we ended up leaning against a frail support. Bad idea!

King Solomon writes to warn his readers to be careful about what they choose to lean against. Standing on something solid is not enough. What you lean upon while you are standing can get you into trouble. But, of course, he is not talking about bridges and railings. He is talking about life. He is talking about trusting God. He is warning against counting too much on the human understanding of things. It's a warning we need.

We have learned from books, from leaders, and from our own experiences. As a result, we have gained an understanding of some things. Should we not lean against, rely upon, that understanding? The answer is: "It all depends!"

Solomon is not telling us to distrust everything we understand. The contrast is with trust in the Redeemer God. It comes down to those times when we look at God's words and God's ways, and find that our thinking is different. The Bible is teaching us, "If you have to choose between what God says and what makes sense to you, go with God every time!" God's path is on solid rock. The railing we construct in our mind is flimsy and flawed.

The phrase, "…with all your heart" is the key. We might trust in God for many things, even for the forgiveness of sins he won for us. But, to the extent that we hold back that trust in him from any phase of our life, we are in danger. We may find ourselves asking: Aren’t the 10 Commandments outdated? With billions of people on this planet, how can God guard and keep me? Shouldn’t a person just follow his feelings? The questions can pile up. So can the doubts. Doubts can lead to the conclusion that we know better than God. We decide to ignore what God says, and go with what seems right to us. Bad idea!

The 1st Commandment makes it quite plain: "You shall have no other gods!" We are to fear, love, and trust in him above all things. "Above all things!" That includes our limited understanding. The hymn writer put it this way:

"If you but trust in God to guide you
And place your confidence in him,
He'll give you strength and stand beside you
When days are dreary, dark and dim.
For those who trust his changeless love
Build on the rock that does not move." CW Hymn 444:1)

Thank you to WELS Military Chaplain Paul Ziemer for this week’s devotion.

Are Your Circumstances Controlling Your Life?

How do you react when something happens that throws your schedule for the day totally out the window? If something breaks unexpectedly and the amount of the repair is more money than you have available at the moment, are you in a bad mood for the rest of the week? When the actions of other people cause you to change your plans, are you flexible enough to make the necessary changes without becoming upset?

Most of us would probably respond to the above questions by saying, “I go crazy when things don’t go the way I planned!” We know we should be in control of our lives, but the sad truth is, our circumstances far too often control us. We’re happy if everything goes our way. We are outraged when someone has the audacity to mess up what we have planned to do.

There is a song called “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from the musical Oklahoma! in which the refrain has the words,

Oh, what a beautiful Mornin’
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I’ve got a beautiful feelin’
Everything’s goin’ my way.


Those lyrics accurately reflect the way we human beings live. When we get what we want, we’re happy. The only problem is, very often we don’t get what we want and that causes us to be angry, hostile and bitter. If we let the circumstances of our life dictate how we feel and act, we are going to be in for a whole lot of very down times.

This Sunday we will be starting a sermon series on the life of the Old Testament prophet Moses. His life could not be described as easy, comfortable or predictable in any sense. Things were always changing for him and many of those changes were unpleasant. And yet, as we look back on his life, we see how God incredibly used each situation, no matter how difficult it was, to accomplish his will through Moses.

What the Lord did with Moses was not in any way unique. He was the God of circumstances in the days of Moses and he continues to be the same today. Certainly no one asks for tough times in life, but the Christian can know that even when it seems everything is going wrong, the God who made the heavens and the earth, who broke the bands of death through Christ’s resurrection, is working in our lives to bring good out of even the worst of situations.

Join us this Sunday at 10:00 am. Let your God give you back control over your circumstances!