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WISDOM AS TRUSTING - PROVERBS 3:1-8

Wisdom as trusting. We all trust in different things in our life. You don't have to be in a relationship very long to understand that it really revolves around trust with your spouse, with your children, with your friends, if you're in business. It all revolves around the word trust. So today we want to talk about really wisdom as trusting.

My favorite verse in the Bible, Proverbs chapter 3 verses 5 and 6, it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. So this word trust, it means to trust in.

First, there's a direction to this word. And today we're not talking about trusting other people. Today we're specifically talking about trusting God. And as you walk with God, you will build your trust in God because trusting God revolves around His faithfulness. You see, God never changes. Our relationships change, our jobs change, our family changes. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God never changes so we can really learn to put our trust in Him.

Now the second thing it means is to have confidence in. What this means is that as you grow in your relationship with God, you will become more confident that the things that God has spoken to you are going to happen. You know, I encourage you to go and pray, you know, God will give you promises about your marriage, about your family, about your friendships, about the things that you're supposed to do in this world. And life is really a test of how much we trust God with the most important relationships in our life. So we can have confidence when God has spoken something to us that the thing that He has spoken to us is going to happen, it's going to come to pass. The Bible says that the righteous live by faith. Now this means that if something already is happening in your life, then you don't need faith for it. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. What does that mean? It means that faith is in the future and we need to trust God to get to our future with the things that He's dropped in our heart, the vision that He's given us, the dreams that He's given us. We need trust in Him to accomplish those goals, that vision, those objectives.

Now the third thing, to trust means to be bold. Wow. So as our trust in God grows, as our confidence in God grows, our boldness can grow. You can actually begin to believe God for bigger and bigger things through your life. That is a wonderful idea that we can be more bold in our relationship with God.

Now the fourth thing it means is to be secure. We can be secure in our relationship with God because so many things in life change. Our age changes, the stage of life that we're in changes. Boy do our circumstances change. Jobs will change, schools will change, family members live by you, then they don't live by you. So much of life is constantly in flux and really when we trust God, it says that we can be secure because God exists outside of time and space. Because of that, He's not subjected to the fluidity that we're subjected to through trials and temptations and circumstances. We can literally be secure in our relationship with God because again when we pray, we're led by the Holy Spirit, the things He has spoken to us, we need to hold onto and trust Him for.

Now the fifth thing is that trusting can help us to feel safe. Wow. There's no safer place to be in your life than in the center of God's will for your life. Being in the center of God's will for your life, it will require you to trust Him when things don't make sense. And so there's always this gap between what God has spoken to you, the future of what you believe that promise is, there's this gap in the middle and that's where you have to trust because so many things will not make sense. Now sometimes you have to trust for a day, sometimes you have to trust for a week, sometimes you have to trust for a month, sometimes you have to trust for a year and with the really big stuff like your marriage and your ministry, you'll have to trust God with decades.

You see the bigger the promise, the more trust is required. Two biggest things you have to trust God with are your marriage and your ministry, whatever those are. So the bigger the promise, the more trust that's required. But you can feel safe because God always comes through on His promises, but we also have to work for stuff. See this doctor title here, that was 23 years of schooling. A lot of work, a lot of work. And boy that felt good when I was finished.

And then the last thing here is to be careless. Wow. The Bible says, delight yourself in the Lord, He'll give you the desires of your heart. The Bible says to cast your cares upon Him for He cares for you.

Ryan, are you saying that if I trust God, I'm going to have less stress? That's exactly what I'm saying. You can trust God, you can actually get to a point where you feel a little bit careless because you have left the results and the outcomes for your life in the loving hands of God.

And that my friend is the good news. Thanks so much for joining me today. Until next time, hope you have a beautiful day.