Friday, July 23

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.
—Proverbs 3:5

How do we give up all that control when we've worked so hard to gain experience and be in charge of our lives? Everything in the world of pop psychology warns against such abdication of responsibility for ourselves.

We've been taught that when we rely on our own understanding we avoid the pitfalls and detours that occur among those who are not vigilant over their own lives. Giving that away leaves us vulnerable to the manipulation of others as well as the endless vagaries of life.

Although it's counterintuitive, it's that very raw vulnerability that
makes it possible for us to be fully present to the world in and about us. It's that very vulnerability that makes us fully present to the energetic movement of God in our midst. 

Relying on our own understanding helps us grow in maturity, but it also blinds us to God's presence that touches us in the hidden and unknown corners of our lives and calls us to heights of human experience that are beyond anything we could have planned or imagined on our own. 

We may fear to trust a God we cannot see, we may fear
to forsake what we believe to be best for us, we may fear to leave ourselves open to the whims of divinity. But it's oh so easy to trudge through life never tasting the nectar of heaven. It's oh so easy to miss God—miss God's benevolent glance creating a protective shadow over us.

It may seem foolhardy to fall into the hands of the living God, but how sad to miss the glorious mystery of God greeting us, just because we were so determined to be in control of our own lives.

O God, help me let go of my need to manage my own life. Let me wake on the morrow to find the dew of your mystery resting on my heart, silent and sure.

These Signposts originally appeared on explorefaith in 2003.