daily devotional

Trust God for the Next Step

Read Proverbs 16:9

Let me pass along an old motto of mine. It's guided me for well over 30 years and remains as appropriate now as the day it first slapped me alongside the head.

I try, I fail.

I trust, He succeeds!

Isn't that true? What simple counsel. Only eight words, yet how profound. 

Bottom line: If you are moving in the energy of the flesh, you're doomed to fail. The old hymn says it well: "The arm of flesh will fail you, you cannot trust your own." 

But when you trust the Lord God to give you the next step, when you wait in humility upon Him, He will open the doors or close them, and you'll get to rest and relax until He says, "Go."

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.