This passage in Proverbs is one of the most well-known and bestbeloved in the entire Bible. Believers have read it, memorized it, shared it, prayed over it, preached from it, and relied on it for centuries. Why is that so? It's simply because we all want to know God's will for our lives. Discovering God's will is one of the dominating pursuits for Christians. Let's see how it works.
Navigational Issues:
Publications Referenced: Bible Gateway, ESV Kindle Edition
Cross Reference: Genesis 24; Exodus 13:21; Exodus 23, Deuteronomy 27, Joshua 7, I Samuel 3:10; Esther 4:14; Psalm 37:23, Psalm 32:8, Proverbs 23:7; Isaiah 58:12; Jeremiah 15:16; Matthew 6:9-11; John 3:16; I Thessalonians 5:17
Hebrew Terms: תּוֹרָתִ֑י (Torah) - first 5 books of the OT, law; וְ֝שָׁל֗וֹם (shalom) - peace, specifically the peace that comes from God; לְשָׁרֶּ֑ךָ (shor) - navel, nervous system
Father we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for the opportunity we have week by week to be together at an ongoing event of praise and worship. Where you are exalted, where our troubles are pushed aside, where our lives, our commitments are not on our screen but you are. Where you are exalted, where we placed Jesus on the throne above everything and everyone else, it helps us to be realigned. So Father we pray what young Samuel prayed, to speak Lord your servant hears and what Jeremiah said, "Your words were found and I ate them and they became to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart". May both of those be true for everyone who is here and may everyone who has come be a worshiper of the living Christ. It's in his name we pray, Amen.
I want to introduce you to my new friend; her name is Jill. She's in a box. This is a GPS and when you turn it on that's her name, it's written on it. Now Jill is a Global Positioning System device, GPS, and the way it works, I understand is there are 24 orbiting satellites at least around the Earth that connect and convey information to each other so that where ever you are this is accurate down to 30 feet anywhere on earth where that his programmed. So you can be directed and I love these things. You're in a car somewhere and it will tell you, "In one half mile turn west on I-95". It's like, perfect, it's what I need that's just explicit direction. So I have a question, do we as believers have a GPS? Is there a spiritual equivalent of global positioning system? Is there a GPS God Positioning System for believers? And what is the method of determining the will of God, the direction of God for our lives?
This is a major issue with Christians. In fact a sort of a standing joke around her years ago, I had a friend who would fill in every now and then he would always call his sermon Knowing God's Will and the thing is that he never spoke about knowing God's will. So I said, Ken, why do you always call it Knowing God's Will? And he said "It's because everybody wants to know God's will for their lives if I call it that a lot of people to show up, it doesn't matter what I talk on". I want to actually talk on 'Knowing God's Will' out of the book of Proverbs chapter 3. I think it's safe to say that sometimes knowing the will of the Lord is known as obvious and plain as a GPS. Have you ever been in a situation where things just fall into place and it's like, "Wow! God was all over that". And then there are other times when it's not so obvious and you feel more like Job who said, "I cry out to you but you do not answer me". You've had those situations as well.
I think I may have told you that when I was a brand-new Christian, I so wanted to know the will of God for my life that I thought the way to do it was to get a pad of paper and a pencil and that God would speak to me. And so, I walked up to a mountain by my house, a hill really with the staff in my hand because I had seen Charlton Heston do this on television. I thought that's how you do it. And I put my staff down by the rock and I sat down and I just waited thinking I'm going to get dictation from God for my life's journey. And I even had a friend was so obsessed with the minutia of God's will that he would get in his car pulled to a stop sign or a stoplight and then pray. Dangerous to do when you're in traffic but he would say, "Lord should I turn right or should I turn left?" And then he would wait there for some impression. I think the Lord wants me to turn right. Can you imagine trying to navigate – let alone the streets, your life that way?
So we're going to look at Proverbs 3. And we're going to begin in verse one and we're going to go down to verse 8. Some very practical counsel about this issue, "My son do not forget my law but let your heart keep my commands for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you. Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck right them on the tablet of your heart and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths do not be wise in your own eyes of the Lord and depart from evil it will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.
Now those verses are among the most famous most memorized and best-loved verses in all of the holy writ. I was on a website called Bible Gateway.com that track the number of hits that it gets, 8 million searches in a month looking at how people and what people are looking for. And they compiled a list of the top 100 most read your most referred to Bible verses in the Scripture. And according to their data in the top 100 the verses that were reading this morning ranked number six or number seven depending on which day they are searching. Way up there, number six or number seven in the top 100 most read Bible verses. And then the ESV, the English Standard Version recently put out last few years in its Kendal edition will tell you that these verses ranked number 3 as the most underlined verses in the Scripture or highlight of verses in the Scripture.
A little background the book of Proverbs was written by a guy named Solomon. Solomon was the son of David the second son of David and Bathsheba, if you remember their first son died Solomon was born after that. Solomon became the third king of Israel and God gave to him great wisdom and Solomon became a very prolific author. Guess how many proverbs Solomon wrote, 3,000 the Bible tells us, 3000 proverbs and get this 1,005 songs. Don't you wish we had one of them preserved like on MP3 or something that we could listen to the cadence, the beats, the words? 1,005 songs, so he wrote a lot. But we have recorded in the Scripture those books that were superintended by the Holy Spirit. They are the book of Proverbs the book of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.
A proverb is what the word indicates. It's an axiom, an aphorism, an epigram, a maxim, a short pithy saying. It is truth that is distilled. It is few words to describe something big. I like to look at Proverbs as truth bombs. They detonate in your mind with such impact and force and they can give you truth in a way that other forms of literature cannot. In the first eight verses we're going to look at three basic things, a promise to lean on, prerequisites to live by and peace to last us. That is how I divided this up and we want to begin with the promise because the promise is central to what we're talking about, and the promise is found in verse six. It's the main thrust of the passage. It's the last part of verse six, "And he shall direct your paths". Now just think of that promise of God to you. It tells me that you do have a GPS that God himself will direct your paths.
Now Proverbs 3, in fact the entire book is written from a father's perspective to his son or to his children. And just like a father or a mother wants to give direction to a child for the future, so God delights in directing his kids. You want to make a Dad's day? Ask your Dad for advice. They love to give it. They love that direction that they can pass on from one generation to the next.
So here's a foundational truth and it's important we cover it right on the onset. The foundational truth is God wants to lead you, wants to direct you. The big question is, "Do you want to be led by Him?" But God is in the GPS business and there are several verses that bring this promise to bare not only this one, but other verses like Psalm 37 or we are told the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way. Or Psalm 32 we're it says, "I will instruct and teach you in the way that you should go I will guide you with my eye". Or we can look at Isaiah 58:11, "The Lord will guide you continually". So we see that God is in the business of revealing himself to his children and directing their lives by his sovereign grace. Furthermore, when we leave the Old Testament and all the passages I just quoted are in the Old Testament, when we get to the New Testament we see something even more remarkable. In the New Testament were not just promised God's guidance we're promised a guide who live inside of us called the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "He will guide you into all truth".
It never ceases to amaze me when I made a believer who is all worried and concerned about guidance and they forget that a guide is living in them, which would cause us to relax a little bit. If the guide is living in you, I think you're going to be okay. It's sort of like, if you were to go to an unfamiliar country or a big-city you had never been and you want to get around. Would you prefer to have a detailed map in your hands for navigation or a person who's a local get in the car and take you personally? Imagine if you could take Jill not a box but Jill is a person or Jack, if you want the male voice, to hop in your car and show you exactly where to go, that would be infinitely much better. Now a couple of things about how God directs, sometimes the Lord directs very dramatically and I underscore sometimes because it's not most of the time. Sometimes it's dramatic.
For instance, the children of Israel were directed to the Promised Land by a very interesting GPS network called a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. How's that for guidance? Where do we go? Wherever that cloud says to go, go. Wherever that pillar of fire stops, stop. That's dramatic guidance. Another example of dramatic guidance, one of my favorite passages is Genesis 24, A guy named Eliezer the servant of Abraham is sent to go find Abraham's son Isaac a wife. And so this guy goes to the country where he is sent and he goes by well and he starts praying a classic prayer. He goes, "Lord, here I am at this well and I'm going to ask these people who are coming. I'm going to ask these girls for a drink of water and I pray that the girl who says to me after I say that not only will I give you a drink of water but I like to give water to your camels, let her be the one you have chosen for Isaac". The Bible says, he wasn't even done praying and the Lord answered his prayer she shows up, he says, "Can I have a drink of water?" And she goes, well I'd like to give water to your camels as well". And he thought "Hot Diggity Dog, my prayer was answered that's very dramatic". And if you're looking that up in your concordance, ‘hot diggity dog', you won't find it.
So that's sometimes, that is not most of the time. Most of the time it's not dramatic, most of the time God's guidance is providential. That is, God directs supernaturally naturally. He unfolds his will in the natural events of a person's life. It's still supernatural, it's still sovereign but it's just, what happens is, your life unfolds. God is directing you through that providentially. A great example is Queen Esther in Persia, who happen to be Jewish and happen to be at the right place at the right time, when her people were being persecuted and her uncle said, "Who knows that you're not at this place at this time for such a time as this", and she was. - The story of Ruth, who just happened to be gleaming in the field of Boaz, which became her future husband, the ancestor of King David, and eventually the ancestor of the Messiah.
So that's how God usually directs. Now if you go back to our verse in verse six it says, "and he shall direct your paths" that's the promise that we're isolating. You may have in the margin of your Bible or in the center portion of it a little note like it is in mine that says, literally this means he will make your paths straight or level. It means to remove the obstacles so that you can go down that path. It's not so bad, it's level, you see which way to go.
Now how does God do that? How does God direct our paths? What part do we play in this? Well now we move from the promise to lean on to the prerequisites to live by. And I'm going to give you, out of the text, five ways for you to tune your spiritual GPS to God's coordinates. And it all revolves around a single word ready, "trust". How do you find God's will? Trust. How do you get directed? You trust. You go "No problem then because I trust the Lord". Well, let me qualify what I mean by trust. According to our text, this idea of trust takes on five different issues. Let me explain. Number one – "It has to be a God-directed trust", a God-directed trust. Notice it says verse five, "Trust in the Lord".
You see, the idea of trust isn't that I have this power called faith and I'm releasing my faith and I have faith in faith. I have this incredible power that when I speak these words out that something's going to happen, and that is a doctrine that has flooded through the church in the last 15 or 20 or 25 years called "The Faith Movement Doctrine", that you have the power by the words that you unleash to speak God's will into existence.
And so basically all you have to do is have faith in your faith. That's nonsense. The reality of this implies a relationship and the object of faith isn't your faith, the object of faith is the Lord, you are trusting the Lord, it's all part of his sovereign plan. Now do you realize that you and I have been designed to depend upon God? That's how we're wired. So much so that God sees the first sin committed by Adam and Eve as Adam acting independently of God rather than depending upon God. That's the essence of the first sin. I'm going to do what I want to do at the time I want to do it. That's independence from God. God wants you to be dependent upon Him. So it has to be a God directed trust. I'm trusting in the Lord.
Number two: "It has to be a wholehearted trust." Notice it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." Now, we have to understand what the Bible means by that word 'heart', because if ever there were a word that were tossed around and are vernacular, very irresponsibly it's the term 'heart'; and I would even say by many Christians. Have you ever heard statements like this from even believers? What we need is more heart-knowledge not had-knowledge, ever heard that?
When somebody makes a statement like that, what they are admitting to is a false dichotomy that somehow the heart of a person is set against the head, the intellect. So that the emotional feeling part of a person, that's the heart, is opposed to the intellectual processing of an individual. And so they say, "We need more heart knowledge, not more head knowledge". Do you know that according to the Bible, this is your biblical heart? It is your mind, it is your thoughts, it is where you process. It is where you form your motives, make your choices, and exercise your will. It might involve your emotions but it's your mind and your will.
And so the Bible puts it this way. Jesus it says, Matthew 9, "Knowing their thoughts, said to them, why do you think evil in your hearts?" So he realized, you're thinking something in your heart, you are thinking evil and he knew their thoughts. In Proverbs 23:7, we read for – as a man thinks in his heart so is he. So once again, the heart is the place is the place where you process your thoughts. So when it says here, "Trust the Lord with all your heart", it simply means, trust God with everything and don't be divided in your thoughts about trusting God. Trust him totally. Now to press the point further, Solomon adds this, "And lean not on your own understanding. So picture for a moment somebody leaning. Okay, here I am leaning on this podium. So far so good, it has an adequate weight to displace my weight. If it were flimsy, however, me doing this, I'd be on the ground by now. "Don't lean on your own understanding but trust in the Lord with all your heart".
It brings to my mind an illustration I heard years ago of a Bible translator down in the jungles in South America translating the Gospel of John. I don't know if it took 2 1/2 years to do it but he was translating the Gospel of John and he was at the key verse of John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life". He had every word, every component of that sentence translated into the receptor line, with except one word, that's the keyword, the word, 'believes'. He couldn't figure out a right word or set of words to translate adequately the concept of biblical belief, biblical faith. And so, he was describing it to the village elders around the campfire. As he was describing biblical faith, what it means, one of the guys jumped up, ran into his tent and laid down on his cot and he said, "I am putting my whole weight on this cot." And they all agreed, that's the exact translated concept of the word 'believe'. So I hear that in that indigenous language.
The translation of the John 3:16 is "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever puts his whole weight on him will not perish but will have everlasting life. So trust him with all of you, laying on his mercy and grace and confidence not leaning on your own understanding.
Years ago, I was working at a hospital in Southern California and I was witnessing about my faith and one of my supervisors in anger said, "Jesus Christ is your crutch", and I said, "You're wrong. He's my stretcher". I can't just lean on him. He has to to carry me through. She didn't quite understand what I was trying to get through. But that's the concept here. Now, when it says, "Don't lean to your own understanding", it doesn't mean that you're not to think as a Christian or to check your brains at the door, it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that you – don't process through things or use common sense or that you can't counsel with well-meaning Godly people. What this means, what this refers to, is a person who exalts his own intellect over and above the wisdom of God, that becomes the problem. When you do that you are leaning on your own understanding and let me give you a couple of examples from people in the Bible who did that. Abraham is the classic, Abraham decided he would lean on his own understanding, push the panic button, leave the Promised Land and go down to Egypt because there was a famine in the land. Even though God said, "I'm not calling you to Egypt; I'm calling you to Canaan". And God told them, "Bad form, shouldn't have done that, I would have taken care of you". But he was leaning on his own understanding.
The second example is Joshua, who instead of searching the Lord's will and praying about every bottle, he decided that he would attack the little town of Ai, spelt 'A-I' because after all it was a little town. It's so easy to takeover, we don't even need our whole army. This is something we do in an afternoon. They went on to attack it and got humiliated, because he was leaning on his own wisdom, his own understanding. So, it has t be a God-directed trust. It has to be a whole-hearted trust.
Third, as you're tuning your spiritual GPS, "It needs to be a recurrent trust". Go back to the text, notice what it says, "In all your ways acknowledge him". In all your ways – in all your ways, you know why I'm doing that because that's going to haunt you, I hope, in days ahead. He kept saying that, "In all your ways", Do you know why I'm saying that? Because some of us treat, prayer like it's an emergency room situation. It's the last resort.
"God I really need you now". What you didn't need him yesterday? In all your ways acknowledge him – it needs to be a recurrent trust. And here's the deal, God is in the GPS business. He's in the leading and guiding business but he gives it to you in increments not all at once. Because when he gives it to you in increments, you'll keep coming back. How did Jesus teach us to pray? Our Father who art in heaven hollowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. That infers if he wants you to trust him every single day for sustenance. Now if we were to write that prayer we would say, "How about give us this month our monthly needs" then I can check in with God 12 times a year and I'm set. He didn't do that. He has arranged in such a way so that in every situation you get up in the morning I commit my day to you. You're about to go into a meeting, I acknowledge you in this. You're about to take a test at school, "Lord I commit that you" every single situation. So that you become what the Bible says, you and I ought to become when it says pray without ceasing. Acknowledge him and all your ways.
I'll jog your memory a little bit. God promised the children of Israel the Promised Land and he told them how they would get it in two passages. One is Exodus 23; the other is Deuteronomy chapter 7. And this is what the Lord says, "I am not going to drive the enemy out all at once". God wants you; just keep coming back. "Lord I need direction" God never goes, "You keep asking me that. You're always showing up here". No, he loves it. And if you're parents and you're children have gone away to school or left home and moved, do you mind it when they call you every day? Are you kidding? You love it when they check in.
Fourth, "It should be a scripture based trust". When you say that you trust in the Lord, it should be based upon the overall knowledge that you and I have of the promises of God in the Bible. God back with Peter verse 1 and look at those first few verses that are often neglected when people read this passage. My son, do not forget my law but let your heart keep my commands. Notice the word 'law' and understand that in Hebrew it's the word 'Torah' which makes this unusual. My son, don't forget my Torah. Torah is the word that Jewish use to describe the Bible and principally the first five books of Moses, the Torah. For length of days and long life and peace they will add to you, let not mercy and truth forsake you, bind them around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart.
What Solomon is referring to, I believe, is the law of God that he had internalized himself, even though he was imperfect. And he is passing on God's Torah to his son, to his children to live. And he's saying, take that which has been written in stone and write it on the tablets of your heart. So that your trust in God is a Scripture based trust. Here's the principle, if you want to know God's will, you have to know God's word, it's that simple. If you want to know God's will, you have to know God's word. It's sort of like this little GPS, Jill in a box. She is based upon actual physical parameters and coordinates, fixed coordinates that are in the area on the earth. So that she can give direction. And so, what is with our spiritual direction? The Bible is the roadmap that helps us navigate through this world and into eternity. And it's based upon fixed spiritual coordinates and those principles are found in the Bible.
In the old days of travel, when people travel by boat and the boats were made out of metal, they would have two compasses aboard those ships one on the deck and one on a mast, high above the deck. And a passenger noticed the two compasses and asked a worker aboard the ship, "Why are there two compasses?" He said, "Well the one on the deck is for the Captain, it's by the wheel. It gives him the general direction, heading and bearings, generally speaking. But since this is an iron vessel that compass is affected by its surroundings, magnetic fields". But he said, "The compass on top of the mast is above the influence". "We always steer by the compass above. We get our exact heading by the compass above".
The Bible is that compass above and the more you and I know the Scripture when your mind is saturated with the truth, you become predisposed to do his will. It becomes second nature to you. Those are the guiding principles that direct your life. Now if you want the kind of resolve and confidence that you see in certain people, you know what I'm talking about, you see somebody who is a believer. They've been a believer a while and you see that confident resolve and steadiness about their life and their walk. It's because of his truth. They are so tethered to God's foundational truth in the Scripture that come what may in life, they're steady, steady, steady as she goes. If you've ever been on a cruise like to Alaska or ever seen the giant icebergs in some places on earth, they're fascinating. Some of them are huge, some of them go up 400 feet in the air and yet 90% of the iceberg is down below. But what it looks like is you are looking at an iceberg in the sea. Let's say it's really windy and you notice the wind is pushing against the iceberg and the waves are beating against the iceberg. The iceberg can be going in the direction opposite to the wind of the waves. The reason being, is because since 90% is below, those currents under the water are propelling it. And that is a picture of a life founded upon the deep currents of God's truth and becomes steady even in the face of winds of trial and the winds of change, the winds of this world.
Here is the fifth way to tune your GPS, fifth prerequisite, "Obedient trust". Verse 1, My son, do not forget my law but let your heart keep my commands. Now, I believe something, just based upon years of being a pastor and a pastoral councilor. I believe that about 95% of a person knowing the will of God for their life begins by that person being willing to do the will of God even before they know what it is. They have this attitude that says whatever I find in the Scripture to be the will of God, concerning this matter this situation, I'm going to do it. That's obedient trust. That's why when a couple comes in for counseling, we typically ask them, or a person comes in for counseling as a single for whatever situation. We usually begin by saying, "Now, before we begin our session understand that were going to open up this book, God's word, the Bible and we're going to look at principles that deal with this situation". I want to hear from you the verbal commitment of you saying, "You are willing to do whatever God commands". Interesting responses, some people go, "Well, I'd like more information please". I like to know what that is before I sign on to that". Then we know, at least I know if I'm doing the counseling, it's going to be a very short session. But if a person says, "I am willing". I know that God is going to direct them because they have an obedient trust.
No matter how difficult it is, God will get you through that. I heard a pilot who just got his license and he was coming in for landing but the clouds had rolled in since he had taken off. He was not skilled in instrument navigation. And so as he was trying to come in for a landing and the fog and the clouds had rolled in, he panicked, he called the control tower and they said, "Don't worry, we'll give you all of the necessary coordinates. We'll tell you how to land this plane. We've got you covered. "But he started panicking, he realized, "I'm in a gig city, there's buildings, there's mountains". And the tower said, "Calm down you worry about following instructions, we'll take care of the obstructions."
That's what the Lord would say to us, "Just follow my instructions, just do the revealed will of God in the Bible for your life and I'll take care of all the obstructions. I will make your paths straight. "Now, I will admit and I know this from personal experience a lot, as do you. There are times when it seems like the GPS signal is cut-off from heaven. We're not getting any signal, we're not getting any impulse. It seems dark; we don't know where to go. We don't know what to do when we start to panic. We start to worry. Just remember as one - put it, that God gave us the moon as well as the sun and when he doesn't see fit to directly by sunlight, he will direct you by moonlight, you'll get there. You just follow the instructions; he'll take care of the obstructions.
And I also want to say before we bring this to a close with the third major point of this message this morning, the piece that we're going to talk about. When it comes to the will of God, I do not believe that God wants to micromanage your life. I don't think God has all these little minute detailed instructions and all the minutia so that you become a daily puppet. So you're just sort of being pulled on a string and every little meal that you have is the deal that you should choose by the will of God. And if you're going to a store and you say, "Lord, should I buy red shoes or orange shoes", he doesn't care. But you obviously do care, so you choose and be content with it.
The best advice I heard from somebody, boils it down to a simple little thing you can all remember, "Love God with all of your heart and then do whatever you want". That's good, love God with all your heart and then do whatever you want, because if you love God with all your heart, you're going to do what he wants you to do. You're going to think about what his words says. You are going to be concerned about glorifying God. If you love God with all of your heart, do whatever you want to do, good advice, good solid advice.
Finally, I'm going to drive your attention to two verses, verse 2 and verse 8. This is the third and final swath of this message. This is the piece to last us. Verse 2 says, "For length of days and long life and peace" the word is Shalom, "and peace they will add to you". You will have God's peace of mind. You won't have a guilty conscience and all of that is going to add health to your life. I read one source, don't know how accurate it is that said, 60% of our illnesses are due to emotional stress or least added to by emotional stress. Activities like fear, sorrow, envy, hatred and guilt. Look down at verse 8, "It will be health to your flesh". What will be health - Trusting in the Lord with all your heart, leaning not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledging him, not being wise in your own eyes. It will be health to your flesh; interesting word 'flesh', it literally is naval.
I know you've always wanted to have a healthy naval. Here's how to have it. And the idea of a naval speaks of the nervous system. If you don't want to be a nervous wreck, learn to trust in the Lord these five ways that we have discussed today. Set your GPS coordinates. Tune your coordinates to those five ways, it will be health to your nervous system. And notice the last part of verse 8, "and strength literally drink or water for your bones", that means refreshment. Dryness of bones was a common image for distress and desolation in those days.
I like to think of it this way, modern medicine can add years to your life but trusting God will add life to your years. You want real life, vigor, vim and confidence. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Have you placed your trust in the Lord Jesus? Are you laying on him completely? If not, I invite you to step into the healthiest lifestyle imaginable. It will be healthy for you now and healthy for you eternally because it will get you to heaven. You trust in the Lord. You say, "What do I have to do?" You have to – Number one, "Admit that you're a sinner that you need God's help, that you're willing to turn from that and trust in Jesus as savior and as Lord and he will direct your steps". That's where you begin.
Let's pray, Lord we choose to lay our lives down on the cot of trust. Not leaning on our own understanding or our own ways, not exalting our own intellect or our own human wisdom above your wisdom and the wisdom especially found on the pages of the Scripture. Help us Lord. We always end our prayers saying help us, because we need your help, we need it today, we need it tomorrow, we needed it yesterday, we'll always need it. You created us to be dependent and you love it when we are. And I pray for anyone here who may not personally know Christ but today they would place their trust in him in Jesus' name, Amen.