TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND DO NOT LEAN ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING. (Proverbs 3:5)

This is a verse which often speaks to me. Let me just share with you what comes to my mind when I read it: 

All these promises tell me God is a faithful God and I can trust Him with everything.

In the classic Christian book, Why Revival Tarries, the late preacher and author, Leonard Ravenhill, wrote about the prayerlessness of many churches. "We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere."

The story Pinocchio is about a wooden puppet whose nose grows long when he tells a lie. His friend, Jiminy Cricket, chirps, "Let your conscience be your guide." Pinocchio follows his advice, changes his ways, and returns to Geppetto his creator, where he is given a heart of flesh and is freed from his strings. However, to this advice it must add: yes and no. Let me explain.

Firstly, What is a conscience? The conscience, Puritan Richard Sibbes wrote in the seventeenth century, is the soul reflecting upon itself. The word from the original Greek for conscience means "co-knowledge" - an internal "knowledge" that either gives approval or disapproval to our choices, or conduct. My car provides a physical illustration of this. It has an alarm system that issues a shrill warning if I forget to turn off the headlights before leaving the car. I don't like the alarm's jarring sound of the alarm, but it saves me from a dead battery. I don’t know how many times I would have been stuck with a dead battery if I had not heeded that alarm.

My first car was a real “Jalopy” (an old, dilapidated motor vehicle). My dad gave me some good advice. He said, “Watch the oil! A car won’t run without petrol, but you can be driving along the road thinking all is well, and you can burn out the engine for lack of lubrication.” There is a parable in this. As a car will not run without fuel, so we cannot function without food, clothing, rest, and some of the material things in life. However, it is possible to exist without giving thought to spiritual realities. It is a tragedy that people can go day after day with their hearts set on the things of earth, not realising that their lives are being destroyed because they are running without “spiritual oil.” All the comforts and conveniences this earth can afford, will never satisfy the deepest needs of the soul.