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September 30, 2026 | Noah Sidhom teaches from Proverbs 3:5-6 emphasizing three main points: trust God instead of yourself, put God first in all your ways, and God will guide your path. He uses personal stories and biblical examples to highlight the importance of faith and surrendering control to God.
Worship service on Wednesday nights in the Chapel
Tonight, we're going to be looking at the topic of trust and our trust in the Lord out of Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. Before we do that, let's open in prayer. Father, I do thank you so much for just these songs that we could sing, and Lord, the truth that we can trust you and we can obey, and that there really is no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey. And Lord, that trust and obedience is not just a command that you give, but is an invitation that you call us to and invite us to. So Lord, I pray that whatever it is that we're wrestling with tonight, whatever it is that we are trying to grab control of, whatever it is that we just struggle to trust in tonight, Lord, I pray that we would lay it on the altar and that you would take it from us, relieve us from that burden that we're carrying. And Lord, you say that you will give us your burden, which is easy and light in its place. Lord, we thank you for all you do for us. We thank you for your love. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. We're talking tonight about the idea of trust. As a father, I've got four children with one on the way. And one of my most important jobs as a dad, I believe, is to show my kids that they can trust me. Because the way that, in many ways, the way that my children view me is, in a lot of ways, how they will end up viewing their Heavenly Father as well. And so it's my job, to the best of my ability, to make that, to bridge that gap between their trust in me and what that means to trust the Lord, make that as simple of a leap for them as possible. But you know, when children are growing up, there are many times where it's difficult for them to trust. And it's difficult for parents to trust. And it's just a hard situation. I remember one of the early times when one of my children, we were at a pool and they took off their floatie for the first time and I told them to jump into the water and that I would catch them. And though they believed me, they said, they struggled to jump. And how often is that the case for us as well? We say that we trust the Lord. We say that we believe Him, but we struggle to jump. As a parent, I must work hard to gain and to keep the trust of my children. In 2019, my oldest son, Asa, had just turned three years old and he was playing boy Jesus in the singing Christmas tree. So he took the role very seriously. It was his last performance up there that he finally smiled up there. But he took it very seriously and he worked hard and he really enjoyed it. But during one of the last performances, I believe it was the second last performance, he was backstage getting ready and he slipped and he fell and landed on his juice cup and ended up breaking his femur. And that began a 10-week journey of him in a body cast from the bottom of his foot to about halfway up his waist. So just turned three years old and we had newborn twins at home and a three-year-old in a body cast, which actually turned out to be a great blessing because we didn't have to chase him around. And he had a great attitude through the entire thing. I'll never forget the moment when I took him to the hospital that evening. It was a Saturday night, I took him to the hospital and we didn't know exactly what was going on. We didn't know if it was broken or what was happening, but we knew he was in a lot of pain. And so he was in that triage room and he was laying there, no cast, no medicine at this point. And they needed to X-ray and scan his leg in order to figure out what exactly was going on. Well, in order to do that, they had to move him around and he was not gonna have that, he was in a lot of pain. And so they tried to move him and he started to panic and would scream and cry whenever they would touch him. So I asked them to back up and I got down as best I could on his level and tried as best I could to a three-year-old to explain what was having to happen. And what happened next, I'll never forget. When I told Asa everything that was about to happen and why it had to happen, he never said a word, but he just locked eyes with mine. And then he let me pick him up and turn him. And the entire time, he never complained, he never screamed, he never pulled back. He let me move him how I needed to move him, but he never took his eyes off of me the entire time. And that whole thing lasted about 30 seconds, but it's a moment I'll never forget because I believe it's a real picture of how we are meant to trust the Lord. Asa didn't know what was happening, he just knew he was in a lot of pain. But as long as his dad was with him, as long as his dad locked eyes with him, as long as his dad told him everything is going to be okay, he was able to trust and allow himself to get turned and x-rayed and whatever else needed to happen. And this really is such a strong picture the Lord gave of how we are supposed to live our lives. We have a father who is a whole lot more trustworthy than I am, a whole lot more trustworthy than you are. And he is the one that we are called to put our trust in. The Bible says in Psalm 9, verse 10, that those who know your name put their trust in you, O God, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. This is an incredible promise that God has not and will not forsake those who seek him. And he has never failed and he never will. So tonight we're going to look at two verses right here in Proverbs. They're very familiar verses, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Most of you probably learned these verses in BBS years ago as a child. And while these are familiar verses, they are verses I believe that we really need to revisit more than we do, because it's something that we often fail to truly believe. Sure, we instinctively say that we believe these things and intellectually we know what we're supposed to say, but when it comes time to jump in the water, how many times do we hesitate instead of trusting the Lord? And these verses, we're doing a series right now on praying God's word. These verses are some of my most favorite verses to pray for people who are walking through any type of situation where they need wisdom and they need the Lord to work on their behalf. On Sunday mornings here at Bellevue, when somebody comes forward during the invitation for prayer, nine times out of 10, this is a verse that I'm praying over those people as they come forward in the invitation. It's a simple prayer. It's a simple set of verses, but it is powerful where it says, the trust in the Lord with all of your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your path. You see, Proverbs 3, verses five and six, tell us what God is going to do in response to our faith and how we are meant to put our faith and our trust in him. So the first truth we learn in this passage of how we are supposed to live is simply this. We need to trust God. You need to trust God, not yourself. Trust God, not yourself. Your trust is, when we trust in ourselves, it's a hard thing to let go of because so often we think that we have everything figured out. We think that we know the right way to go. We think that if we just push a little harder, we can make it happen. Now, even though we know that our minds are not infinite, we know that there are limits to what we are able to do, we have a tendency to think that we're right in most situations and we have a tendency to think that if we just try harder, we can make it happen. But the Bible is very clear here, that we are to trust in God and not lean on our own understanding. This doesn't mean that God wants us to turn our brains off. This doesn't mean that God wants us to act like we don't have a brain, that he has not given us a brain, but we cannot place our own thoughts, our own understanding above trust in the Lord. We anchor our trust in the Lord. The Bible says in Proverbs 3, verse 5, trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. You see, you can't do both at the same time. You can't trust in the Lord and lean on your own understanding. And the more that we trust in God, the less we will lean on ourselves, but the more you find yourself leaning on your own understanding, your own intuition, your own wisdom, your own intellect, the more you find yourself leaning in that direction, the more you'll find yourself not trusting the Lord. But why is it that we can trust the Lord? We know he's good and the Bible also teaches us very clearly that he never changes. And if he was good then, do you know what that means? He's good now. And we can trust in that. The Bible says in Numbers 23, 19, God is not man that he should lie. He's not son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said and will he not do? Has he spoken and will he not fulfill? Those are rhetorical questions that bring the question, no, of course not. Everything that he says he will do, everything that he has spoken he will fulfill. He's not a man that he should change his mind. You see, God is good on every single one of his promises. We are often fickle in our thinking and in our feelings and in our motives. God is never fickle. You see, how often do you go throughout the day and change your mind about big things or little things? How often do you find that you can't decide what you want to happen?
out for dinner? How often do you find yourself wanting to purchase something, and you wait a day, and then you don't want to purchase it, and then you come back and you do want to purchase it? And our minds, they flip back and forth. The Lord is not like that. The Lord knows the beginning from the end. How often do you make a decision later to learn something else and then to find out that you made the wrong decision because you did not have all of the information? That never happens to the Lord. That's never a problem that He faces, and He can always be trusted. Adrian Rogers used to say it like this. Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God? Has it ever occurred to you that nothing has ever occurred to God? He sees the beginning, He sees the end, and He can be trusted, unlike our own hearts and our own minds. In the book of Jeremiah, the Lord is speaking to the prophet Jeremiah about this very thing, about how untrustworthy our hearts are, how faithful God is. And He begins by telling Jeremiah what it looks like when a man puts his faith in himself. The Lord says, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and he shall not see any good come. This is referring to somebody that trusts in himself. He shall dwell in parched places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land. But the Lord goes on to show what somebody's life looks like when they do put their trust in the Lord. That's what somebody's life looks like when they're trusting in themselves. But blessed is the man whose trust is in the Lord. Whose trust is in the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water. It sounds a lot like Psalm chapter 1. He's like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green. It's not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. Then a very important question here is asked, because as we try to distinguish the difference between trusting in ourselves versus trusting in the Lord, and how do we even know what we're doing, the question gets asked, the heart is deceitful above all else. It's desperately sick. Who can understand it? And God answers the question, says, I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruits of his deeds. God is saying, you want to know who understands the heart, who searches the heart? It's me. I am the one that does it, says the Lord. And he is not deceived. He is not tricked. As we look at the web of our own heart, and as we even try to figure out where our trust is placed, and what we are even believing and thinking in a moment, God sees through all of that. And God says, I can untangle the mess of your heart. And the Lord is the only one that truly understands our heart. He searches the heart. He tests our mind. And he is not fooled. He knows when we trust him. And he knows when we lean on ourselves. And when we trust in him, the Bible says there that we will end up like a dried-up shrub in the desert with no hope for life. But if you want to be a tree planted by waters, a tree that remains green even when Memphis cannot give up its summer, and it just keeps coming back over and over again, if you want to remain green and have your roots in the stream and be strong and not care about the drought, not care about the heat, then that is what a person looks like when they place their trust in the Lord. See, their trust in the Lord, their lives will be rooted much deeper than our hearts and our understanding can take them. It's only where the Lord can take them. Do you want to anchor to something in life that is better than what you can offer? I know I do. And so often, I find myself attaching that anchor and holding on to something that is moving with me and cannot be trusted. But when I anchor to the Lord and place my trust in him, I do not drift. You see, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is not just a cute little VBS verse for the kids. It's a verse that we desperately need to learn and to apply to each and every one of our lives today. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. I'm not going to ask you if there's an area of your life where you tend to lean on your own understanding, because I know everybody here is guilty of that in one way or the other. But what is it for you? I could tell you what it is for me, but I'm not going to. That's none of your business. But what is it? Where do you find yourself trusting in yourself instead of the Lord? I encourage you to identify it, because when you identify it, when you name it, you can give it to the Lord. That's the first step in correcting it, is recognizing that it's there. And if nothing comes to mind, I encourage you to ask the Lord. He will be glad to tell you where you're trusting in yourself. And so I encourage you, just identify one place in your life where you are trusting in yourself and not in the Lord, where you're leaning on your own understanding. And let's give it to the Lord. But how do we do that? How do we trust in the Lord when we find ourselves leaning on our understanding? That's the next thing we learn in this verse, is we trust God in ourselves. And then in everything, we have to put God first. In everything, put God first. See, it's easy to put our trust in the Lord when things are going right in our lives, when things are the way that we like, when things are easy and smooth. But when we face a problem, we often want to scoop back over to the steering wheel and take back control. But that's not what trust in the Lord looks like. In the same way that Asa was on that x-ray table, he didn't understand that he had a broken femur. He didn't understand what an x-ray was or why he needed to have one. He didn't understand that all of these doctors were trying to help him and not hurt him. But he would simply look at me, and he would do what I told him to do. And that's what we're called to do as well. You're not called to understand everything that you walk through. You're not called to try to figure it all out. You are called to simply look to the Lord and put Him first, to acknowledge Him and to understand that He is in control. Verse 6, the first part says, in all your ways, acknowledge Him. This doesn't just mean to acknowledge that He's here as if you're acknowledging somebody has walked into the room. It means to know Him and to submit to Him. You see, you cannot acknowledge God without acknowledging the fact that He is bigger, stronger, faster, and better, and everything else-er than you are. See, without understanding who God is, there is no true acknowledgment of who He is. And every time you find yourself back in the driver's seat in your life, in a situation, that is a sign that you have not truly acknowledged the Lord. Because if you had, He would be driving. But so often, we know that the Lord is present. We know that we're supposed to come and submit to Him. But we choose not to acknowledge Him. We don't put Him first in our lives and in every situation. To understand what this looks like, practically, what does it look like to acknowledge the Lord and to put Him first in everything, we look simply at the life of Jesus. There are so many examples we could look at. We'll look at two very quickly. The first comes when, towards the end of Jesus' life on earth and His ministry here on earth, He was praying to the Father. And He prayed this, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. You see, Jesus' metric for success of His earthly ministry had nothing to do with how many people were following Him at the end. In fact, there were times during His ministry when thousands of people would be amazed by His teaching and His miracles, and they'd begin following Him. And then Jesus would intentionally say some hard things, some hard things to hear, in order to thin out the crowd. Because He was not interested in just a popularity contest. Jesus was not interested in a shallow following. He was not counting His success on earth by how many sick people He healed, by how many demons He cast out. He wasn't counting His success by how many of His followers were willing to start a church in their home after He left. Jesus' metric for success was simply doing what the Father had given Him to do. And towards the end of His life, He was able to say, Father, I have accomplished everything that you have sent me to accomplish. I am done with my ministry, my task here on earth. And that's what it looks like to acknowledge God, to not just know that He's there, but to align yourself underneath Him and to admit who He truly is, and to call our success what He calls success. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane just before He was arrested and crucified, He wrestled with what was coming next in His ministry. You see, while Jesus is and always has been and always will be God, when He came to earth, He was also fully man. The Bible says He humbled Himself and took on the form of a servant, and even humbled Himself to the point of death, a death on a cross. And so when Jesus
embraced that human nature, it means that he felt the same feelings and the hurts and the pains that you and I feel. And if you were in the garden knowing right now that you were about to be arrested and tried and tortured and beaten and crucified, that feeling, that fear that you would feel, that dread that you would feel, that is the same thing that Jesus felt in that moment in the garden. He was not immune to human emotions and feelings. But how did Jesus acknowledge God in the midst of that, in the midst of facing down the cross and staring down the cross? What did Jesus do to submit to the Father and to acknowledge him? As he was praying, he says, Lord, if there's any way, if you're willing, please let this cup pass for me. Remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. See, so often we think that acknowledging the Lord and trusting the Lord and not leaning on ourselves mean that we just have to act like we don't have feelings, to act like we don't have thoughts, to act like we don't like certain things, to act like we understand what God is doing. But even in this moment, Jesus modeled for us what it looks like to have an honest conversation and say, Lord, this is hard. If there's any other way, would you please open that other way? But nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. That's what submission looks like. That's what it looks like to put God first. And while we have a great role model in Christ in what this looks like, it's still really hard for us to do if we're honest. Anybody that tells you that this is easy has not actually done it themselves, because this is a hard thing. And as we walk through hard circumstances, it can be really difficult. Like I said, it's easy to trust the Lord when everything's going right. But when I find myself in the hospital with my son with a broken leg or earlier this year, you'll remember my daughter had her appendicitis and she was not doing well and we didn't understand what was going on. In those moments, it's hard to trust the Lord. It's hard not to try to grab it myself and try to fix it and try to make things better myself. It's still really hard, especially... I can see your eyes. I know some of you are control freaks. I can tell you which ones you are. But I am as well, and in reality, to a certain extent, we all are. But during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us about this very thing, about how we're supposed to live and to let go of these concerns. Jesus said these words. He says, therefore, don't be anxious. Don't be going around saying, what are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? What are we going to wear? He says, the Gentiles seek after all these things. He's referring there to the unbelievers, those who aren't followers of God, who are not God's children. He's saying, the people who are not God's children, that's the things that they worry about. That's the people who are lost in this world. That's what they spend their time thinking about. That ought not to be the way with you. The Gentiles seek after all these things. And your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. So what do you do when you have a need? Naturally, we start to get anxious. We try to figure out the answer to the problem. We take control of the steering wheel. But that's not the reaction Jesus teaches. He says, seek first. You're worried about what you're going to eat. You're worried about what you're going to drink, what you're going to wear, where your next meal is going to come from, how you're going to pay for the electricity, how you're going to pay for the house, the sickness you have, whatever it is that you're worrying about. Don't worry about that, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. All these other things will be added to you. Your Father knows that you need them. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Now, if we could just learn that, that would carry us the rest of our lives in some ways that many of us struggle in every single day. You see, Jesus teaches that the flowers of the field are dressed in abundant beauty and majesty by the Father, and they're plucked up and thrown into the fire tomorrow. And that there is not a common bird in this world that falls to the ground without God the Father noticing that that bird has fallen to the ground. And how much more valuable to the Lord are you as His child? And if the Lord can be trusted to take care of the flowers and to take care of the birds, it shows He has a care for us that is so much greater than you and I could ever understand. So when we're facing a problem, what should we do? Look to the Lord, acknowledge Him, and bring your problem to Him, and actually trust Him with it. Listen to what Peter said in 1 Peter 5, 6, and 7. He said, "'Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all of your cares, all of your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.'" He's saying don't try to figure it out, don't try to take things into your own hands, don't try to control everything. Humble yourself underneath the mighty hand of God, trusting that He is able. And before I try to make it sound as easy as that verse makes it sound, Peter knew that wasn't the case. Peter struggled with this. We saw over and over again in the Gospels that Peter jumped ahead of the Lord, and he would try to figure things out, he would try to take things into his own hands. Peter did not always acknowledge the Lord, so much so, what did he do the night of Jesus's crucifixion or His arrest? He denied he even knew who Jesus was three different times. And this is what we read from a man who learned his lesson, who walked through that and experienced what it means to not trust the Lord, to not follow the Lord in this way, and to learn the hard way that God can be trusted. He says, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that He may exalt you, and we can cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you. Peter learned the lesson that God really can be trusted, that He truly cares for you, and that we must learn to submit to Him. And he must learn, we must learn to cast all of our worries on the Lord. In everything we do, we must properly acknowledge Him. We have to put Him first. So what does this mean for us tomorrow? When you wake up tomorrow, how do you put the Lord first and acknowledge Him in all that you do? You know, we could talk about reading His Word and praying, and I think those are absolutely non-negotiables that we need to do. We need to start our day hearing from Him and speaking to Him, but it's not just a generic Bible reading and a generic prayer. Whatever, when I told you to identify something earlier that you struggle with control on, that you struggle to trust the Lord on, and you find yourself leaning on yourself in that part of your life, what is that? And tomorrow morning, proactively lay that on the altar before the Lord. Know that you have a tendency to grab control in that area, and proactively confess to the Lord that He is a better driver than you, and give Him the keys. Give it to Him before the day even starts, and if you're like me, about an hour later, you'll find yourself right back with the Lord, having to give it to Him again and again throughout the day. But the more we give it to Him, the more we will learn what it means to truly trust Him, and I believe the longer we walk with the Lord, the more we surrender these areas of struggle to the Lord, the easier it does get. But unfortunately, the way our minds and our hearts are wired, usually something else pops up along the way, and it's a never-ending battle on this earth. But one day, we will be with the Lord, and we will not have this battle anymore. We can trust God, not ourselves. In everything, we need to put God first. And lastly, the Scripture teaches us that when we do these things, God will show you the way. God will show you the answer that you're looking for. He will show you the way. Now, before we jump into this last part of the verse, I want to talk contextually about what we're looking at here in Proverbs. You know, the book of Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings. It's wisdom literature. It's good principles to live by, and generally, for the most part, it says, hey, if you do this, this is what you can expect. But not everything in Proverbs is a promise. It's not a guarantee. Here's an example of that in Proverbs 10, verse 4. A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Now, I think we all see the wisdom and understanding of this proverb and what it means, but is it possible that a lazy person can end up with a bunch of money and be rich? Yes, absolutely. Is it possible that somebody can work really, really hard and be diligent and not have a ton of money? Yeah, it's absolutely possible. But generally in life, you understand the purpose of the proverb here, generally in life, when you see somebody being lazy and not working, usually poverty and need is going to follow them. And typically, when you see somebody working really hard and working diligently, they may not be the richest person on the street, but they typically have what they need and are provided for in that way. So as we look at that, we go back to our text for tonight. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
lean on your own understanding. This is something that God says, hey, if you do this, if you do these things, he goes on to say, I will make straight your path. But here's the question. Is this the same thing as a hard worker that might not be financially stable just because it doesn't always work out that way? Is it possible that you trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways you acknowledge Him and that you're still lost at the end of the day? Let's look at the verse to find out. He says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your path. I want you to notice two very important words in this verse. He will. That sounds like a promise, does it not? You see, in this proverb, the answer is not rooted in ourselves. It's not rooted in a general principle of how the world works. This promise is rooted in God Himself and who God is. And the Bible says that He will. And when the Bible says He will, the answer is going to be that He will. You see, God responds to faith and He never forsakes His children. Does that mean that you won't face any problems if you trust the Lord? Not at all. Does that mean that He won't leave us in the dark? It does mean that He will not leave us in the dark and that He will show us the way forward. It doesn't always look the way we think it will, though. It doesn't always look the way we want. But at the end, at the time when we look backwards, we can so clearly always see God's faithful hand moving. Think back to Asa on that x-ray table. As his father, I couldn't take the pain away. I didn't take the pain away. But I was able to show him a way through it and towards healing. I was able in that moment to tell him, I know this is going to hurt, and I know you don't understand. But if you do this, if you allow us to do this, we can fix your leg. We can make it feel all better. And once again, I'm not even that great of an example. How much more will our Heavenly Father lock eyes with us and guide us in the right way? One of my favorite passages in Proverbs contrasts the difference of what it looks like when we walk with the Lord versus when we walk in the ways according to the world. And the Bible says in Proverbs 4, 18 and 19, the path of the righteous, this is the way following the Lord, is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They don't even know over what they stumble. You see, when God makes our path straight, like he says in Proverbs 3, verse 6, he puts us on the path that leads towards dawn. As we walk with him, he makes straight the path for us to walk with him. And as we continue walking that way, the Bible says that every step gets us closer and closer to dawn. And then one day, it will be bright as noonday. When we walk with the Lord, we're going to walk through darkness and through hard moments. But he provides light all along the way. And the reality is that we need light. I can't tell you how many times I've walked through the worship center here at Bellevue, thousands of times over the years. And I know that room better than most any room on planet Earth until the lights turn off. And I don't know if you've ever tried to walk through that room in darkness. And I always, to this day, I start out real confident. And about 30 seconds in, I start seeing things that aren't there. And I start feeling for a chair. I know a section I should be at already, and there's nothing there. And I walk very boldly. And then about five seconds later, I take an arm rest to my knee and have to sit down for a little bit as I recover. Even in a room that I know so well, without light, I'm going to injure myself. I'm not going to be able to find the way. And that's what it's like in our life. When we try to walk in darkness, when we try to walk without the light from the Lord, we're going to hurt ourselves. We're going to stumble. And we're not even going to see what is making us trip. But when we walk with the Lord, even through rough terrain, even when entering uncharted territories, rooms we've never seen before, He turns on the light. And He shows us the next step that we should take when we trust in the Lord with all our heart. Lean not on our own understanding. In all our ways, we acknowledge Him. He will make straight our path. I don't know about you, but I really do not enjoy trying to figure things out on my own. I've tried that. And even this week, there were situations where I was trying to figure it out. And I had to learn to surrender certain questions and certain situations to the Lord and trust that He sees things better than I do and that He has a better plan than I even desire. But when we trust the Lord, He is always faithful to show us the way. He doesn't ever leave His kids in the dark. Now, I recognize in a room with this many people in it, there are more than likely several of you who are walking through a very difficult season right now. Maybe it's with your health or with a family member or whatever it is where you're walking through a season that feels darker than some other times in your life. I want you to know that Christ does not leave you in those moments. And He does not forsake you. When Asa broke his leg, he had a lot of pain, a lot of discomfort. But I never left his side until he was recovered and out of that hospital. I stayed with him. And I was with him as he recovered and went through recovery and all that he went through. And in that moment, he chose to look at me. I'll never forget that, the way his eyes would lock on mine. And I locked eyes with him. And in that moment, no words were said, but everything was communicated. And I'll never forget that moment. And I truly believe that is exactly the kind of trust that we are meant to have with the Lord. That's the exact posture that you and I should take when we walk through hard situations. So often, when we walk through hard times, our tendency is to retreat from the Lord and to try to figure things out. But more than any other time, that's when we need to lock eyes with the Lord and follow his path. And we know that he can be trusted completely. Romans 8, 31 and 32 says these words. What then shall we say? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? In other words, do you think that the Father is going to send Jesus Christ to Earth to live the perfect life and then to be betrayed and to die a miserable death on the cross? Do you think Jesus is going to go through all of that and then God's going to leave you in the dark? If he was willing to give you his son, what would he possibly hold back from you that you need? I want to encourage you that the Father gave us Jesus, and he will give us all things if we trust in him. He will make our path straight. And one thing I love about this verse is that all you have to do is change a couple words, and you can turn it easily into a prayer. I pray for myself all the time and for other people. I pray that I say, Lord, help me in this situation. Help me to trust in you with all of my heart and to lean not on my own understanding. In all my ways, help me to acknowledge you. I thank you that you will make my path straight. This is a great promise to claim and to pray for other people. Whenever I encourage you, when you have somebody that's walking through a difficult situation and they don't know what they're supposed to do, whether it be a job they don't know they're supposed to take or where they're supposed to go to school, who they're supposed to marry, how they're supposed to walk through an illness, whatever it is, this is an incredible verse that you can pray for that person and with that person. So like we do each week, I want to take just a moment here at the end. And if you would bow your head and close your eyes. And we're going to right where we are. Each one of us is just going to pray. I'll give you a couple prompts. And I encourage you right now, just pray for yourself, for that situation that you thought of earlier, where you tend to grab control. Let's just grab onto that and use this as an opportunity to surrender that to the Lord. And then do it again tomorrow. And do it again the next day. So I'll give you a short prompt. And then you pray just for a moment there. Bible says, to trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Ask the Lord to show you where you trust in yourselves versus Him. And ask Him to give you the strength to surrender control in those areas.