He came home one day with seminary on his heart. The Lord impressed, we prayed, doors opened, and within three months, my husband of only two years resigned from a secure, career-building job he loved. We packed up our life, our toddler son, and moved to Portland, Oregon to pursue missions training. Agreeing that this path was the next right thing for us, we embraced the adventure! We could not have guessed where the path would take us.
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Charging ahead for three years of full-time seminary for Darrell and part-time jobs for both of us, wasn’t always easy. The balancing act grew when we added a baby daughter and the pressures of tight schedules and tighter finances. But our route remained clear, and before we knew it, it was time for our required overseas internship. We chose Sheffield, England and set up house with two little ones in a new country, learned the culture, and the local lingo (neither as easy as we had pictured). Our goal: to practically apply the seminary book learning to real cross-cultural situations. After our internship, we returned home for Darrell’s master’s graduation—more eager than ever to step into missions’ full time. We never saw our path’s dead-end ahead.
Trusting the Lord, we believed the path was seminary, internship, graduation, then onto full-time ministry life in Sheffield, England. But the opportunities we expected didn’t present themselves.
Staying in the US wasn’t part of our agenda. We were so distraught. We didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. We even tried to force open doors that would lead us to the ministry life we assumed was our future. “We just knew” what we were called to! Nothing made sense. And yet we pressed forward while wondering at the purpose behind the last three years of study, training, and experience.
Our chosen life verses were Proverbs 3:5–8:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.”
These verses were prayed earnestly before we uprooted our lives to relocate for seminary. We had full confidence God was leading the way.
But in this new season of not understanding we prayed, “Lord, we trust You. But … did we hear You wrong?” We had prayed and trusted, we’d gone and acknowledged, then suddenly the path stopped. Finally, without options or a way out of the dead-end, we faced our need for work and a place to live.
Have you been there? Wondering if the path changed and you somehow missed the road signs? How do you respond or maintain trust when the way forward is clear as mud?
I don’t know about you, but my best learning seems to come in hindsight. Looking back, I can see how I focused on the result of our ministry goal—serving God in another country—assuming there was only one outcome the Lord would use. We were willing to go. It took a long time to recognize that willingness to go doesn’t mean you get to.
The “path” was always to trust God. To lean not on our own understanding but His. To acknowledge Him. To believe He makes the path straight.
So how did we miss it? Or did we miss it? Was the not knowing and not understanding part of God’s greater plan to grow us into His likeness? Growing our trust in His leading?
Proverbs 3:7 says, “Be not wise in your own eyes.” Growing in wisdom is an ongoing journey, not an instant achievement on a checklist of accomplishments. I know I’ll be on the learning curve of wisdom until the day I see Him face-to-face.
Part of gaining wisdom is asking good, thought-provoking questions of God in prayer, which keep Him central in the equation, and of the wise saints the Lord puts in our lives.
Here are questions I now know I could have asked:
- Is there another way to look at this?
- What is God doing in this change of plans?
- Did I misunderstand what God first asked us to do?
- How am I growing and changing because of these circumstances?
- Can God use what I don’t understand for His honor and glory alone?
How do all of these reflect the wisdom of Proverbs 3:5–7?
What did it mean to lean not on our own understanding? What did it mean that He would make our path straight? (NKJV says “direct your paths.”) There were times when my husband and I leaned on our own understanding. Other times we naively stepped forward without considering if it was a step the Lord was directing us toward. We learned to pray more—over everything.
What did it mean to acknowledge Him in all our ways? The ten years after our seminary and England experience, I felt lost and didn’t understand why we weren’t going where I expected, somewhere I thought was meaningful. The fact is we had gone for the time we were called; we came back and did the next thing presented to us, but I couldn’t see it. I was stuck in my expectations and assumed we’d missed or misunderstood God’s directions. What’s more, I believed God had gone silent on us.
My sixty-one-year-old, wiser self looks back and says, “What if the Lord took us away to prepare us for our next season of raising a family?” We had another daughter after our time in England. During those next ten years I often asked, “Lord, what is it we’re supposed to be doing?” I didn’t know I was doing it. I was a wife, a mom, a scramble-and-make-ends-meet person. I was also serving in youth ministry in our church. I was doing things for God. It just didn’t look like the path I had envisioned.
God took us to Portland for a purpose. It was a relational growing time for us, as well as a learning time in His Word. England was an invaluable experience with lifelong implications. Does leaving that path mean God changed His mind? No! Numbers 23:19b says, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.” We just couldn’t understand from the beginning His purpose for us. We made assumptions about our long-range future based on a direction He gave us for only a few years.
I have visited Proverbs 3:5–8 often, paying close attention and asking better questions as I read the text:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
- What does trusting God look and feel like?
- How do I avoid leaning on my own understanding?
“In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
- How can I remember to acknowledge him daily, moment by moment?
- What confirms for me that I am walking His path?
“Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.”
- How can I remember to stay humble before God and take my eyes off myself?
- How can I recognize the enemy’s lies? What steps can I take to turn away from evil?
“It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.”
- What healing of fleshly desires is mine for the asking of my heavenly Father?
- What refreshment to my body and soul are waiting for me when I trust God?
Let this be an encouragement to you: the Lord uses everything! Both the obvious plans and the ones that seem like you missed a direction are within His providence. To lean not on your own understanding is to be willing to say, “Lord, I don’t understand this. It doesn’t look the way I thought it would, but I will joyfully walk this path I’m on because I trust You with it. Wherever I am, You are with me. I don’t have to understand how to move forward with You, but I do have to trust You, and I do!”
Prayer: Lord, daily teach me the truths of Proverbs 3:5–8. I desire to trust You over my own thoughts, leaning into Your love. Let me daily think about You and Your ways. Help me to align my heart to Your leading. You are all wisdom and discernment. You alone give true rest and refreshment. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
