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 your paths straight.
(From Proverbs 3:5, 6, NIV)

In 1873, Willian Henley began his 20-month tenure in a cold hospital room in England. Suffering from bone tuberculosis, Henley checked into the hospital to have his foot amputated. Battling infections, loneliness, and pain, Henley penned the words which is the mantra of many: I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. Then Henley watched his five year old daughter succumb to her illness. He moved to a cottage by the river, shut all the windows and spent the summer in hopelessness and sorrow. Later he had a prominent career as an editor and, in his mind, remained the captain of his soul.

But Proverbs 3:5,6 asks us to act in exactly the opposite manner. In a principle for our life, the writer asks us to trust in the Lord through life's toughest circumstances and through its mundane routine circumstances. The Hebrew verb for trust, Batah, has two related nouns - to be secure and to have confidence. The writer reminds us that our security is only the Lord and our confidence should be only on Him. In the next part we are told to not lean on our own understanding but to acknowledge God in all our ways. This is practical faith. The writer is asking us to lean our body, as we would against a doorpost, on the Lord. Our weight entirely rests on God and we remain still... quiet... in obedience. We don't have to make things work - we simply, completely, and continuously trust the Lord. The promise that comes with this verse is that God will them make our paths straight. It means that He will clear the path for us. The road may be rough and hard to travel, but He will level it for us and give us victory.

Horatio Spafford was a well known lawyer and real estate investor in Chicago. One day his four year old son died of scarlet fever. Shortly after, the great Chicago fire destroyed all his real estate holdings. Two years later, in 1873, he sent his wife and their four daughters to England on Ville De Havre. The ship collided with The Lochearn. He received a telegram from his wife with two words on it: saved alone. Walking through that road of deep sorrow and agony, Spafford penned the now famous song, When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, You (God) has taught me to say, it is well with my soul. Years later God blessed them with a daughter.

Trust in God is often marked by faces stained with tears and knees scared at the altar. There may not even appear a light at the end of the tunnel. As Isaiah writes in 40:31, at times we may wearily walk or limp along... but we will not fall... and God will clear our path and give us victory. We are not masters of our fate, rather we are victorious children of Lord Jesus Christ.