Words from a Branch

  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 straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV             These wise words of counsel harkens back to the wisdom of Proverbs 1:7, and thus to the very foundation of wisdom itself. God is at the beginning of all wisdom, as He is at the center of all understanding. Failing to acknowledge God in all our ways is an act of willful ignorance, that will necessarily send our path in life here and there and everywhere as we try to find some way apart from the cardinal directions. We will subject ourselves to futility in reliance on our incomplete understanding. We shall move without going anywhere.             God’s understanding is alone perfect, and perfectly perfect, only He knows the way in its entirety. When He makes the path straigh...

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:34 ESV             Humans wisdom has its limitations. Even where wisdom might succeed it is frustrated by other aspects of human finitude. That is to say there must and shall come times when we say of necessity, “I do not know what else I might do.” Our unnatural nature of sin, which demands self-reliance as a point of pride, despises such admissions. It is easy to give ourselves over to endless anxiety, and fretting over situations trying to find some way of controlling the outcomes. It is easy to spend today trying to guess what tomorrow will bring in order to be ready for it.             Where wisdom fails faith takes over to give us peace and rest. In faith there is room for love and patience and gentleness which have no home in the...

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Matthew 10:16 ESV             As the Westminster catechism says the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That is our first priority, our highest end, our primary goal; and comes with inherent risks. It is very easy to throw caution to the wind and to lay down our lives in the quickest and simplest way possible. It is very easy for a man who has hated this life to commit suicide after this manner using ignorance to mask cowardice and selfishness and sin. To glorify God seems a simple task, but it is complicated in many ways by our human condition. The great difficulty we face is that we have one life to lay down, and there are many ways to do so.             Therefore, our Lord counsel’s wisdom, the wisdom even of a serpent: see Genesis 3:1. Brin...