Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding (Prov. 3:5).

Today Lorraine Hill talks about the need to trust in the Lord and His plan because sometimes, when everything seems to be going wrong, our disappointment can lead us away from Him:

Though disappointments may naturally arise, they create a great crossroad for us. We can either pour out our hearts to the Lord and continue to trust him, or we can dwell on the disappointment and become embittered by it. If we choose the latter, we can easily enter a season of discouragement or despair and can unknowingly allow the chains of self-pity to bind us (p. 131).

In Heart Strings, Jill Briscoe also shares with us about how disappointments can wear us down and really grate on us over time.  She warns us not to hang up our harps (lose our joy) on the “Grating Tree”.  Other things can grate on us too.  Criticism from others, personality differences, and even the act of sharing the gospel with unreceptive people can ultimately discourage us or anger us; either way it leads us away from God and His will for us.  

In our homeschool this month, we are working on memorizing the poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I think this Christian life is about taking “the road less traveled by”. Each day, each moment presents us with a fork in the road.  We can choose to trust in the Lord or we can lean on our own understanding.  Lorraine Hill talks about choosing to stand on God’s promises rather than listening to the voice of doubt, which is the voice of Satan.  Page 134 has a great chart that shows how we can turn our negative self-talk around by using scripture.  This is a topic I feel very strongly about and plan to write about someday.  But this day, I would challenge you to trust in the Lord’s goodness at every fork in the road.  We need not carry the burdens we carry: stress, low self-esteem, worry, fear, anger, guilt, hurt, pride…“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt 11:28-30).  

Really trusting Jesus with our burdens and during our times of disappointment is a learned behavior.  Anyone can do it!  I know it is hard to let go of the illusion of control that we have in our lives.  But really, we are fooling ourselves, if we think we are actually in charge.  Do you not know? Have you not heard?  Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?  It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in…“To whom then will you liken Me, that I would be his equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.(Is 40:21-22, 25-26).  This is the One we can trust.  We can choose to rely on Him and believe that He is really holding together all the things that seem to be falling apart.

JustaGirl…just like you