Trust in the Lord...

Proverbs 3:5-6 (New King James Version)

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

       And lean not on your own understanding;

 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,

       And He shall direct[a] your paths.

This is how it all began for me.  This was one of the first scriptures I memorized when the Lord first touch my life and transformed it back in Sept 94.  The word journey was chosen because you don't just take a walk when you journey there is a purpose to the journey.  Everything that happens to us in life happens for a reason.  My journey has taken me down many paths of the unknown. The unknown is a dark place that is often a great source of fear in our lives.  We must choose the opposite though.  Trusting does not come naturally.  It comes by making a conscious choice.  Trusting does not "just happen".  We must choose to not only let the Lord's perfect love in to cast out our fear, but to also "choose" to walk the path we are given to walk know there is a greater purpose to be served in that path.  Once recently in the last few years I told my mom this "We don't choose the path we are given to walk, But we choose to walk the path before us".  I picked the picture because it reminded me of one of the days I had ventured away with the Lord, and how he deepened the meaning of this scripture to me.

It was a beautiful late summer day in the NC Mountains.  I had taken a day away to spend some quite time with the Lord. I did not realize that day how many incredible lessons he would teach me from trusting Him and following the whisper to come away with Him for a day.  One of them was the road less traveled.  I jumped in my truck after I had, had an unexpected dunk in the creek. Luckily I had brought a sweat shirt with me so I could get warm after my plunge.  As I entered the truck I sensed the Lord urging me to follow the road up the mountain.  This is fine when you know the road and you have traveled it before. This was a road I was not familiar with and I could feel the fear rising in the back of my throat.  Yet in the same sense I could hear the whisper of the Lord in my ear beckoning me to go up this path. He assured me there was a purpose in this journey.  I also felt the embrace of the Lord surrounding me encouraging me to "Trust Him". 

As I began the dirt road was clearly marked and it was easy traveling.  As I continued  the road began to narrow at first, then it became two wheel ruts.  About this time I began asking the Lord should I continue because it was getting harder to take this path.  He continued to assure me that I was to keep going even though the path was getting harder to distinguish.  I continued on the path and I watched the path shrink smaller and the weeds started creeping over the path making it harder to distinguish.   Again I queried the Lord should I continue, his response was "trust Me".  So I continued until I finally made it to a large opening in the trees where I could make a safe turn and go back.  When I arrived at the top I expected to see a sight like did when I traveled in the Rocky Mountains while I live there.  When you would go to the top of the Rocky Mountains you would see for mile and miles…there were no trees to hinder your view. There is a reason they call them the Rocky Mountains. There is nothing but rocks on top. In the NC Mountains they still have trees covering their tops and the view is not so grand you just see trees that is about it.  Not what I had expected. Then the Lord began to speak more and said that He was going to take me on a path that not many would travel.  That at times it would not be clear where the path was going and that when I got to where I was going that it would not be what I expected.  Trust me if you would have said to me then I would be writing like this,  I would have said no way or that I would be traveling an hour and a half from one town to another to get my college degree or that I would be reaching a point in my marriage where I thought we were going to enjoy the best years of our life only to have a non-curable cancer strike my husband. We are not sure we know if we have two years or twenty together.  I would have told you, you we crazy! So God has taken me on some paths the not many would take. The irony of it is that the yearbook theme I got that year at college was "The Road Less Traveled".  It seems at every point I travel in this journey the Lord keeps giving me a new place to walk that asks me that question over and over "trust Me?"  It requires me to engage a deeper part of my heart each time turning it over to Him.  Many times it does not look the way I expect.  I keep walking the path though trusting Him each step of the way. 

So I am choosing to write this journal to share something that was birthed in a college dorm room one early morning when I awoke to a realization that Jesus died on the cross to restore our relationship with God after "the fall"  So what keeps us from walking in the cool of the morning with God like Adam and Eve experienced??  We do.. First we must except Jesus as our Lord and Savior ...believe in our hearts that he died and rose again to redeem us from our sin.  Then we must be willing to choose differently in our life.  Choosing to trust in places of our hearts where trust was broken and allowing the Lord to bring us to restoration.    We must choose to be in fellowship with other believers so we may develop strong encouraging relationships in our lives.  To find someone you can be accountable too and to most of all find "YOUR" garden.  I have found my garden and the Lord is meeting me in this place.  He has been for years and in this is a place I hope to share some of the fruit of the whispers I hear as I walk with Him in My Garden.  I pray that the Lord will help you find a garden to walk with him on your own journey also.