Heed and Embrace

5.26.2011

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

Recently our eldest son, fresh in from Pre-Pysch class, announced that he’d learned in class that studies have shown that we (humans) don’t begin to really understand cause and effect until around the age of twenty-four; our brains don’t mature until about then. To which I thought, well that explains a lot!

I had never heard that before so I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about that statement. I know lots of people who in their middle years, don’t seem to understand cause and effect – they keep trying to do the same thing but expect different results. To which I began to understand that though we acknowledge cause and effect, unless we heed it – it does us little good. There ain’t no shortcuts.

Here’s cause and effect for you: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3.5-6 NIV) Trusting God is like admitting that I don’t understand or embrace cause and effect, but I want to learn. Trusting God with all of my heart means being completely open and honest before Him in every part of my being; and attending to the shadows, as the Jesuits teach.

We could say it this way: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise cause and effect. (Proverbs 1:7 NIV) The great apostle Paul summed it up this way: the cause – sin – effects our relationship with God without which we are doomed to death. But we must embrace cause and effect and realize that the sum of our lives today depends on whether we do or not…

Lord Jesus,
Teach me to trust You with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength and allow all of that to have it’s effect – I pray in Your Name, amen.