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 your paths.

This really gets to the core of our Christian living. Can you trust the Lord fully? With all your heart means with everything. Can you trust the Lord no matter what comes, good, bad, or indifferent, no matter what the pain, no matter what the suffering, no matter what the trial, no matter what the disappointment, no matter whether your dreams crash and burn? Can you really trust the Lord wholeheartedly no matter what? The other alternative is to lean on your own understanding. That is to interpret everything from your perspective. Remember this, God loves you and promises that He is working all things together for your good. You have to trust Him for that. Don’t lean on your own understanding; don’t trust your own interpretation. Job had some problems. All of his children were dead. They were killed while they were worshiping God in one of the son’s homes. Then Job lost all of his animals, his crops, he lost everything, and then he was sick and he was sitting in ashes, morning and scraping boils off his body, a horrible kind of dilemma. The only thing left in his life was his wife.  Frankly she was no help; she said curse God and die. He had some friends who came over. It says when they came over they just kind of hung around for seven days and didn’t say anything. That was very wise. They just cried a lot and patted Job on the back. Then it says after seven days they opened their mouth and as soon as they opened their mouth all wisdom left. They made these ridiculous conclusions about what was going on in Job’s life. They had their own understanding and it was dead wrong. Finally in the end it became clear and Job even said to the Lord, how am I going to understand this? My heart is right, I look at my own life and I’m a man of integrity, I can’t find any sin, I don’t know why this has happened to me. He didn’t know of course about the discussion between Satan and God and God’s desire to test Job’s faith and prove to Satan that saving faith can’t be broken. Job didn’t know any of that. So in his questions he says, God, would like to explain to me? And God’s answer was, no, I’m not going to explain anything to you, why do I need to explain anything to you? And at the end in chapter 42:5-6 Job says look I had heard of You with the hearing of my ear but now my eye sees You and I repent in ashes. Job says, you know I’m sorry I ever questioned You; I’m just going to trust You. In that great moment of trust God gave Job another family and greater blessings than he’d ever known before. If you will do what this verse says, don’t lean on your own interpretation of the things that go on in life, trust the Lord, in everything acknowledge Him, He will open up a path you never even expected. This is His promise.  – John MacArthur