DRAW US CLOSER A REFLECTION ON PROVERBS 3:5–8

Lord, how could I trust You with all my heart if I do not spend time with You? How could I say I trust You when I rarely slow down to listen, to pray, to meditate on Your Word, to know Your heart more deeply? Trust is never built from a distance. Trust grows through relationship. The more I know You, the more I learn that Your wisdom is higher than mine, Your love deeper than mine, and Your ways far better than my own understanding.

Yet how do I know when I am leaning on my own understanding?

Sometimes it is obvious. When pride rises, when I insist on being right, when I become defensive or impatient. But many times, it is hidden beneath good intentions, personal preferences, wounded emotions, or even spiritual language. I can convince myself that I am following God while quietly following myself.

What does it mean to acknowledge You in all my ways?

Perhaps it means more than merely mentioning Your name or asking for blessing upon my plans. To acknowledge You is to submit every part of life before You. Yes, my decisions, my reactions, my relationships, my disappointments, my pain, my speech, my silence… are You still at the centre of these?

And how do I know whether my paths are straight?

Not because life becomes easy. Not because there is no suffering, conflict, or confusion. But perhaps a straight path is one that keeps leading me back to Christ, back to humility, repentance, love, truth, and obedience. A straight path is not a painless path; it is a God-directed path.

But Lord, how do I turn away from evil when evil often comes disguised as light?

Evil rarely announces itself openly. Sometimes it hides behind success, self-righteousness, bitterness, manipulation, comfort, or even ministry. Sometimes it sounds reasonable. Sometimes it feels justified. Sometimes hurt blinds us so deeply that we no longer realize how far our hearts have drifted from You.

That is why I desperately need You. And that is also why we desperately need one another. Draw me closer to You each day. And draw us closer together as one body each day. You are not only directing me, You are shaping a people. You guide the different parts of the body together. And through the body, You lovingly correct us, remind us, confront us, encourage us, and transform us.

Last week in our office devotion, we reflected on aligning ourselves with God and with one another. Someone said, “When we got hurt, we forgot to align with God.” So true.

How often pain narrows our vision. Hurt can quietly shift our focus from trusting God to protecting ourselves. And yet healing begins when we slowly realign our hearts with Him again. The healing process takes time. Sometimes much time.

But thanks be to God, we do not walk this journey alone. We can gather honestly around His Word. We can confess our struggles without pretending. We can continue checking our hearts together, asking whether we are still trusting in the Lord or leaning on our own understanding.

This is the beauty and challenge of being the body of Christ: “From Him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:16)

Lord, teach us to trust You more than ourselves. Teach us to align ourselves with Your heart. Teach us to walk humbly with one another. And when we drift, wound, or stumble, draw us back again, closer to You, and closer to each other.

Building His Missional Community,

Pastor Forest