The Path to Straight by Margaret Manning

Take about 5 minutes to read this snippets version of The previous day's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Follow up by reading TODAY'S SLICE and forward any comments on your faith journey.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
6In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.
(Proverbs 3:5-6)

A Slice of Infinity Snippets:
Real trust in the Lord is only forged out of the fires of testing--testing that reveals whether we truly trust in the Lord or in what we want the Lord to give us. In other words, do we trust the Provider, or the Provider's provisions? In my own life, when it seemed that God withdrew the "provisions" and things stopped going my way, my plans failed, or my goals and dreams didn't materialize, I began to realize that my trust was in my own understanding of what was necessary to make my paths straight. So, as God had abandoned my plans, my test of trust began.

C.S. Lewis once wrote in his marvelous book The Screwtape Letters that in order for the believer to mature in faith and trust, God must withdraw "all the supports and incentives" and "leave the creature to stand up on its own legs--to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish." He continues this thought through the character of Uncle Screwtape, the senior demon coaching his nephew Wormwood on the skills of devilry: "It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He [God] wants it to be. Only then, when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's [God's] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

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