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BRAVER THAN LIONS
Sam Stringer
Oct 5, 2024
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.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Play along with me here for a moment: wouldn’t it be nice if you could just eat one meal and you’d be
satisfied for the rest of your life? Or how about buy one car and it lasted you until you met your end?
Maybe one pair of shoes that you really liked, that never went out of style and never wore out? Life is full
of things that simply must be maintained, and even at that, many items that have expiration dates relative
to wear and tear or decomposing.
I think a lot of us look at our relationship to God that way. We’d like to think that the occasional prayer or
reading of our Bibles or hearing of a sermon should last in such a way that we never need to revisit it
again. This wishful thinking is really just laziness disguised, because to have a relationship is to maintain
a relationship. If I simply said my vows on my wedding day to my wife, occasionally said “hi” in passing as
we went our ways for the day, our marriage would be falling apart. Our moods change, our thoughts
change, our wants and wishes change; so much about us changes because we are sinful, fickle people in
a fallen world.
Trusting the Lord with all your heart is not a one-and-done, is it? It is for salvation, sure, if it’s genuine.
Nevertheless, faith is a process, a revisiting, a developing and growing element of a real relationship with
God. So I want to ask you today: do you trust in the wisdom of God? To further elaborate, do you trust in
the wisdom of God towards you? Do you trust in the wisdom of God towards how things have gone in
your life? Do you trust in the wisdom of God towards where things are going?
In considering the wisdom of God, we must embrace the fact that His wisdom means that whatever we
have or will face, whatever the outcome, this is God’s best. God’s best for me may be financial woes
today; it may be difficult physical limitations, sicknesses, etc. It may be doing well and having an
abundance for the season, too. I may need to be doing well, and I may need to be vulnerable because of
what God intends to do in me through my moment or season. We ought not discount one or the other as
the absence of God’s wisdom, but the presence of it, God knowing not only the circumstances but also
the person (you, or someone else) within those circumstances and how you will respond within them and
where this is going to take you along the journey. If we are honest with ourselves, we do not know what is
best for us, only what seems best to us, and we do not know where we might go if we get what we want
or are withheld from certain things we thought we could or couldn’t live without. God, in His mercy and
grace, has eternal vision towards everything we go through, knowing what is best and what will
accomplish His plans in the most glorious ways possible, regardless of whether we agree or not. When all
is said and done, let me encourage you in this: you will agree with His wisdom in everything in retrospect
in Heaven.
What’s the best thing you can do today when it comes to God? Trust Him! Trust Him with all of your heart;
not a little of it, not most of it, but all of it. Don’t lean on your own understanding, your own logic, your own
experiences and insights as your ultimate authoritative guide, but on a God who has declared in His word
that He is great and glorious, worthy of all praise and that He is for your good. He will not leave you high
and dry when you trust Him, but He may put you in places where trust is all you have. It’s unfortunate but
all too common that we see this as a bad place to be! God encourages us to trust Him because this
brings Him glory and does us tremendous good; it’s a character-building process. While God could give
you everything possible right now and keep you from any needs or any distresses, He is more invested in
who you are than what you have or what you want. You and I should be so thankful that He cares more
about us and who we’re becoming than the simple and sometimes silly things we desire along the way.
Will you trust Him today?
Trust is a foundational element for being brave in your faith. How can you be brave, how can you be
confident and at peace in your heart without trusting God? He did not design us to be independent of
Him, but dependent upon Him. He who would have you be braver than lions would not do it without
trusting in Him with all your heart. Expect spiritual malfunctioning in your life if you don’t address one of
the core needs of your heart and life that cannot be haphazardly maintained. Don’t do yourself the
disservice of feeling both the pains of life and adding to it by refusing to trust God through it. God loves
you too much to let it be any other way. Be blessed today.
Sam Stringer
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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