By Not Known
Many of us would be familiar with Proverbs 3: 5- 6 which says “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.” Some of us would have even committed it to memory and often find it a useful reminder to depend on God and allow him to lead us in our daily life.
Reading from the immediate context, we see its link with the preceding aim of life desire to “win favour and a good name in the sight of God and man.” (Pro. 3: 4) In other words, a life that is pleasing to both God and man.
It is interesting to note that following v.4 is a series of injunctions (vs. 5- 11) about living in relation with God so that his various blessings will be received. The part in relation to man is being held over to the latter part of Chapter 3.
It is right for the compiler of Proverbs to begin with relation to God for it is putting the emphasis in the right place. Most of us as Christians would want to please God as well as man. However, there are times in our lives when we will not be able to please one without displeasing the other. This is when we need to make the right choice to “walk to talk“: by pleasing God, rather than man.
If we recognise King Solomon to be the writer of Pro. 3: 5- 6, we will realise how easy it is for us not to “walk the talk.” For 1 Kings 11 tells us that in latter years Solomon no longer trust God wholeheartedly and acknowledge him in all his ways. His weakness for women make him listened to his foreign wives who influenced him to worship their gods. Can this be the seed sown for Solomon’s son and successor, Rehoboam to mislead Judah into idolatry later?
The lesson here must not be lost to us. Our children will pick up our “walk” much more than our “talk“. Very often we have Christian parents complaining with much pain and heartache that their children are living ungodly lives despite the Christian upbringing they had been given. There is almost always a complexity of reasons for a child not to embrace the faith of his parents and it would often been unjust to blame the parents for it. However, would one of the reasons be parents not “walking the talk“? If we are one of those parents who have not been “walking the talk“, then it is time for us to throw ourselves at God’s feet in repentance and ask God to turn things around. For with God, nothing is impossible