Nail Polish

Proverbs 3:5-6 – Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He's the one who will keep you on track. (MSG)

I'm trying to grow my fingernails. I've been trying all of my life to do this. But when there is the least little bit of stress, I fiddle with my nails and pick at edges that stick out, and before I know it, I've ripped off the end of a previously successful attempt. Along this journey, I have discovered that if I put nail polish on, then I'm really not inclined to fiddle with my nails because I don't want to ruin the nail polish. The nail polish keeps me from losing nails. This week, I did not have time to put the nail polish on, although I could have made time to do so. I erroneously thought that I could go this week without the nail polish. I'm doing really well; I can do it this time! What a mistake! Life happened, and now, I have ruined three nails! Well, so much for thinking that I could do it all on my own!

Can we go through life without God? Can we just "do it on our own"? Does this work? Or maybe we'll just have a little bit of God in our life. Does that work? Do our fingernails look great with only some nail polish on, and not all painted? If we do have God in our lives, do we make time for Him? Is not doing so going to get us through the tough times? We need to have God, all of Him, all the time, every moment, every day, and we need to talk to Him all through those times. In return, we will have a wonderful relationship with our Father in heaven. Clearly, we don't do a good job all on our own. We think that we do know what we need, but in reality we have no idea, and we make poor choices.

I always picture myself and God riding a tandem (two-person) bicycle together — only I'm not sitting in the front seat steering the bicycle — God is. He is steering my life. When we become Christians, we are giving up control of our lives in every possible way. We need God. And what a relief to know that we don't have to be in control of our lives and that we can leave our decisions up to Him! We can't go through life successfully or happily without Him and we need to make time so that we can listen to the direction that He wants us to go in our lives. I'm going to do that. Are you?

Prayer: Our dear heavenly Father, thank You for loving us no matter what place we are at with You. We pray that You would enable us to let You take full control of our lives and steer us where You want us to go, so that we would be obedient to what You want us to do. Help us to take time for You, so that we can learn about Your ways and be open to what You want to tell us. But, Lord, take away anything that would hinder us in this process. Open our hearts, Lord, because we really do want to see You. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

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