Small-group study
Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust The Lord With All Your Heart
One page, about 45 minutes. Read it through before you meet, and feel free to skip a question if the conversation is already flowing.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
1. To begin
Whose advice do you trust without question, and why them? What did they do to earn it?
2. Read it again, and look closely
Have someone read the verse aloud a second time, slowly.
- Two things are set against each other: trusting the LORD, and leaning on something else. What is the something else?
- How completely are we told to trust? Look at the phrase "with all your heart". What does "all" rule out?
- What is the promised result, and what is it that God does?
3. What does it mean?
- "Lean not on your own understanding" is not a ban on thinking. What kind of leaning is it warning against?
- "In all your ways acknowledge him" is sweeping, the ordinary ways as much as the big decisions. Why might the small daily ways be the real test?
- "He will make your paths straight" does not promise an easy road. What might a "straight" path actually mean here?
4. What about us?
- Where are you currently leaning hard on your own understanding? What would it look like to bring God into that before you have already decided?
- Trust is built or broken in small ways. Where this week could you acknowledge him in something ordinary?
- Is there a path you are trying to straighten by force? What would trusting look like there instead?
5. To close, pray
Bring God the decision or worry where you are leaning hardest on yourself. Tell him honestly that you want to trust him with all your heart, and ask his help where your trust runs thin.