So I decided to take a walk around town recently with the intent of discovering God. The morning before I did this, I was reading through proverbs, which, of course, is the book of wisdom. Now, wisdom used to be the thing I pursued with all of my heart. It was the thing I prayed for every night before going to bed and many more times throughout the day. I don't know what it was that made me so passionate about the pursuit of wisdom. I suppose it must have been God, because God himself is wisdom, and so all wisdom comes from God, so naturally, if you truly pursue wisdom, you will find God--and that was my intent. But time passed and my direct pursuit of wisdom faded until I had nearly forgotten about it entirely. I guess I just got too caught up in my future to care about seeking more wisdom. So instead of making sure to pray for wisdom every night, my prayers grew into prayers for a girl I love and other such things. And I wouldn't say that's a bad thing because love is just as beautiful as wisdom. But I think the fact that I had neglected my pursuit of wisdom was... not the best thing to do. So, reading through Proverbs that morning, I was reminded of my eager pursuit of wisdom and I started wondering what happened to that. And the dwindling spark inside of me fanned into a flame once more and I began praying for wisdom. It's cool how much wisdom is in the book of proverbs, but that is only a taste of the wisdom God has for us to discover. So I took a walk just to be with God. We talked about things. I asked him to help me with some things. He told me to trust him. And as we talked, I passed a random sign in someone's yard that said, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." In case you didn't know, that verse is from Proverbs, and it goes on to say, "And lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6) Now I've heard this verse hundreds of times. I heard it so many times... but I never really stopped to think about what it was saying. To do something with all your heart... That means you're doing it with everything you have. No holding back. Every last part of you is pushing toward that. So to trust in God with all your heart... That's a big commitment. And then there comes the part of, "Lean not on your own understanding." That is a very fitting follow-up to the first statement. oh man... The number of times I've decided to doubt God because of the way I see things is ridiculous. Have you every seen A Bug's Life? At the beginning of the movie, there's that part where the ants are all gathering food and a leaf falls on their cute little assembly line and all the ants just freak out cuz all they see is a big object separating them from their destination. I felt kinda like those ants. God must be up there thinking, "It's a leaf, for crying out loud, Spencer! Get over yourself!" Ha... But that's not how he thinks at all. He loves helping us get around the uncertain parts of our lives. But anyways... to avoid leaning on our understanding of things... that would be amazing. I think I would have avoided a lot of tears through my life if I had done that. And then Proverbs says, "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path." If we just acknowledge Him in everything we do, He'll make sure we end up in the right spot. That's all we have to do. Trust and acknowledge. Then Boom! No more need to worry about squat! Cuz He's got us and He's already got it all figured out. Hmm... I didn't mean to talk about that for so long, but I guess I did so o well. Moving on. So I passed that sign and it made me happy. Such a simple verse... I think wisdom is actually very simple once we grasp it. It doesn't need to be all fancy and stuff cuz it's wisdom, and wisdom doesn't need to show off to anyone. So I continued to walk until my legs started to get tired and that's when I decided to turn around and head home. On my way home, I passed a graveyard and I decided to walk through it because dead people have a lot to teach living people if we're willing to listen. As I walked through the graveyard, I read every tombstone I could and wondered who each of those people were. Some lived less than twenty years... I'm six months away from being twenty. Others were older than eighty when they died. Eighty years... That's like, four of my lifetimes. It's cool seeing graves of people who were Christians... are Christians. I don't feel quite as alone. I noticed a very large tombstone and went to it to read it. It belonged to a couple who had lived a long life together. On the stone, they had a poem of the love for each other they held. I'm not really sure who chooses what's going to be on a person's tombstone, but I assume that whatever is written on it is written there to honor the one it is for. Then the other half of the stone had on it the most beautiful prayer/poem I have every read, and it is for that prayer that I even decided to write this note in the first place. Annnd this is what that prayer said,
"O Heavenly Father,
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
Hear me! I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my
Eye ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you
Have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the
things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in
Every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be greater than another,
But to fight my greatest enemy—myself.
Make me always ready to come to you with
Clean hands and straight eyes,
So when life fades as the fading sunset, my
spirit may come to you without shame.
Amen."
Wow. Isn't that like, the coolest thing ever? It's so beautiful!! It was actually originally a Native American prayer. This version simply changed what originally said, "O Great Spirit..." to, "O Heavenly Father." I think both version works perfectly fine because in many ways, God is a Great Spirit. He's pretty great in my eyes, at least. I think whoever wrote this must have known God pretty well. Well, I suppose I have now shared what I wanted to share so I will stop here. Thanks for listening to what I have to say.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! TRUST JESUS NOW
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