Trust in the Lord
WE OBEY GOD’S COMMANDS NOT BY TRYING, BUT BY TRUSTING.
Bible Reading of the Day: Read Proverbs 3:5-8.
Verse of the Day: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
“Relax!” Suzanne said. She stood waist deep in a large swimming pool with her friend Linda. Suzanne held her hands out, palms up, in a pleading gesture. “You’ll never learn to swim by fighting the water. You have to give in and let the water hold you up.”
“I know,” Linda admitted. “But I just-I guess I’m just afraid of sinking.”
“Do you want to do the floating exercises again?” Suzanne asked. She was the captain of the school swim team and gave swimming lessons every summer.
“No,” Linda said. “I know I won’t sink.” She inhaled deeply. “Let’s try it again.”
Suzanne placed her hands under Linda’s stomach as Linda stretched out on the surface of the water. Linda began moving her arms and legs as Suzanne had instructed her. After a few moments, Suzanne took her hands away, and Linda kicked her way to the side of the pool.
“I did it!” Linda shouted. “I did it, didn’t 1?”
Suzanne laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “You did.”
When Linda’s lesson was over, she walked with Suzanne to the locker room. “You’re going to be swimming better than me in no time,” Suzanne said. “Yeah, right!” Linda said, laughing.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. You do everything else better than I do.”
“Like what?”
“Well… you’re the perfect Christian. You never say or do anything wrong.”
“That’s not true,” Linda said.
“Yes, it is,” Suzanne insisted. “I’m serious,” she said. “How do you always manage to do the right thing?”
Linda scratched her head. She could see that Suzanne was serious. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s… it’s a lot like swimming. You’re always saying I need to stop trying so hard and let the water hold me up, right?”
“Yeah,” Suzanne said. “So?”
“So that’s not too different from obeying God and doing what he says. It’s not so much that I try to do good and be good and all that stuff; I just stay as close as I can to God, and trust him to do the work. It’s not trying so much as it’s trusting, because I don’t have the power to do good, but he does. So I just trust him day by day to help me do the right thing.”
TO DISCUSS: How is making right choices like learning to swim? How can you show by your actions that you trust God with all your heart?
TO PRAY: “Lord, help us trust you to help us do the right thing through your Spirit, who lives within us.”