A Path Made Straight

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

If you’ve been a Christian for more than six months, you probably know this verse well. It’s a verse that’s both beautifully accessible to those new in faith, as well as rich in meaning to those who have been walking the Way for years.

As someone in the latter category, it might be easy for me to gloss over it, having read it a hundred times, and seen it on placards in every Christian house I’ve been to.

But also as someone in that latter category, someone who has walked with God through a myriad of life’s seasons, it’s verses like these that I cling to the most. Verses that are easy to believe when things are going well, but ones our flesh forgets all-too-easily when things get hard. Those are the verses we need etched on our heart.

Now, in the last seventeen years as a Believer, God has led my family to do many things. For the sake of time, I’ll stick to recounting the major ones.

First, we moved away from family when we were freshly married, to teach at an inter-city school and work at a local church in San Antonio, Texas.

Next, we moved across the world to Australia to go to Bible and Leadership College, where we stayed for years in obedience to God who ‘hadn’t said ‘go’ yet’. We followed His open doors and did the visa dance for nearly nine years there. We had two kids there, made family there, and put down roots so deep they’ll take years to pull up properly.

And just at the start of this last year, we were led to come back to New Mexico.

We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, strangers to living our life in obedience to God’s call.

But I’m not going to lie; it’s been a hard road being back in America. We grieve the life we had in Australia. We grieve our friendships and the family we made. We grieve the church we poured our blood, sweat, and tears into for nearly a decade. Add to that, family members going through cancer treatment and surgeries, being without our own home and struggling to find work, not to mention navigating our children’s emotional adjustments to a new country!

So yes, it’s been a lot. Our hearts have been broken. There have been doubts and anxieties, worries and tear-filled car rides asking ‘seriously?’. There have been late nights where my husband and I have looked at each other through tear-soaked eyes on tear-soaked pillows and asked, ‘what did we do?’. And there have been more times than I’m proud to admit, where we both have tried to ‘take control’ of the situation through our own strength.

When I read verses like the one above, it’s all too clear why we need them etched on our hearts. Because when God leads us to do something we don’t want, something we’re scared to do, something that doesn’t make sense to us, a verse like this,becomes a light in the dark.

When our heart is broken, and struggling to comprehend the why, this verse acknowledges that yes, His ways can be hard to understand, but they are also better, and to be trusted.

When our mind is doubting, and asking a million questions, it reminds us that the reward for walking in obedience, is a straight path laid out before us. One free from right-turns and detours and side-tracks that lead us away from our purpose.

When we’re tempted to take back control, to strive our way into righting our world, it reminds us that God does not deal in half-measures. He will not be half-loved, half-followed, half-acknowledged. And nor does He deserve to be. He understands the tendencies of our human hearts, and verses like these are here for our own benefit. We must submit all our heart, and all our ways to His goodness.

We had been obedient, yes. We had made the move. But clearly, there was more work to be done.

Because in a lot of ways, our last bit of surrendering could only happen here, amid our grief. Because grief will reveal your rock bottom better than anything else. It will show you where you turn to for bearings, it will stretch your faith, and it will shake your foundations.

I had more pride left to surrender to him, and foundations to shore up. I had more declarations to make, resolving that ‘He is worthy’ even if He never did another thing for us. More promises to ‘praise in every circumstance.’

I needed to make those declarations, to wrestle and to grapple with those things. And I am glad I did. Because today, this verse means more than it has ever meant before.

In this season, I can now say I trust in the Lord with all my heart.

I can now say I’m not leaning on my own understanding in the slightest.

I have submitted every way, every thought, every attempt to take control.

And He most certainly has made my path straight...and that pathleads straight to Him.

He is a provider. A healer. A promise keeper. He is good. He is kind. He is altogether lovely. He is worthy to be praised.