March 12, 2025

Have you ever been reading a verse you have know for years, and suddenly you see it a little differently? A different part of the verse sticks out? Or maybe you just understand it in a different way? I really like when this happens to me. Sometimes when verses feel familiar, we get desensitized to the strength of their meaning.

This happened recently to me with Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Aside from John 3:16 and Psalm 23, this might be one of the most recognized verses in the Bible. I have heard it and read it so many times in my life. For all the years that I have known the verse, my mind has focused on trusting God, leaning on his understanding, and then my paths becoming straight. It’s a very encouraging verse and reminds us of what our part is.

But you might have noticed that there is one part of the verse I was overlooking. “In all your ways acknowledge him…” Acknowledge isn’t a word I really understood well when I first learned the verse. Other versions of this verse say, “With every step you take, think about what he wants…”; “Seek his will in all you do”; “In all your ways submit to him…”; and “Listen for God’s voice in everything you do…” What an important thing I was missing!

To be completely honest, I haven’t been a person who prays about everything. I wish I could say differently, but that is the truth. I prayed about the big things—the things I couldn’t figure out on my own. For anyone that knows me, they might not be surprised to hear that. That has sort of been my pattern in life. I’m not good at asking for help until I CAN’T do it myself. As you might imagine, that has made things pretty tough at times. When you don’t ask for help until you are bottoming out, you have to get to the point of bottoming out. If you are better at asking for help sooner, with things that aren’t so big, then you might be able to avoid the bottoming out.

So when God began highlighting to me that I need to “acknowledge him in all my ways”, that was something new for me. I started adding smaller prayers into my daily prayers. I started praying about things before I normally would. I prayed about things I normally wouldn’t have prayed about. Slowly it started to feel a little bit more normal. And not just normal, but incredibly good.

I was used to the feeling of coming to God with the big things and laying them down at his feet and releasing them. Yes, sometimes I have to do that many times because I keep taking them back. But the feeling of laying down the little things was amazing. The feeling of talking to God about EVERYTHING has felt so freeing! I don’t know why this has surprised me. God knows what we truly need and what he tells us to do in the Bible is for our own good. I tell this to my kids all the time, but I guess I needed a reminder of it myself.

There have been a lot of things going on in my family for the last few years (any time you have 6 kids, you will have a lot going on…). I’ve been praying for a lot of big things. But I’ve also been learning to pray for all the small things.

For the last 6 months, we’ve been looking for a piano. We had to leave our old piano behind in a move and we really wanted to replace it. We have a few piano players in the family and for me personally, it is almost like therapy. It doesn’t matter how good I am, or if anyone is listening. I play for myself and it is one of the few things I do that is only for me.

This means I was pretty invested in finding a new piano. But all the pianos we could find were out of our budget…quite a bit out of our budget. So we kept waiting and searching. And waiting and searching. We had been waiting and searching for over 6 months before I finally remembered to pray about it. (Some lessons need to be relearned over and over again.) I had a moment of clarity where I realized that I hadn’t ever asked God to help us find a piano. So I prayed. I asked God to help us find a piano that we could afford. I even mentioned that a certain dollar amount would be wonderful. As always, it felt great to release it. To remember that God cares about all the little details of our lives too.

Two days later my husband was really excited to show me a piano that had just been listed for sale. It looked really nice and he had already messaged the seller so we could go check it out. Then I looked at the price they were asking. It was the exact amount I had asked for in my prayer!! Now I have to mention here that the amount I asked for was about 1/3 of the price we had seen any piano be sold for. It was really a steal and it was in our budget. That moment is one of those moments that I will remember forever. I have never felt so seen by God. Just like Hagar in the old testament, it was my moment of “You are the God who sees me.” He showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he hears everything I say and sees all my desires.

I am so thankful to God for that moment. Yes I’m incredibly happy to finally have a piano. That has been wonderful! But that moment brought me so much more than a piano. Number 1, it was a beautiful reminder of what is possible when we acknowledge God in ALL our ways. Sometimes he is waiting for us to ask, to just talk to him about something. He sees and he cares, even when they aren’t the big things. Number 2, God was so kind to remind me that with so many big things still up in the air in my life, he’s got it all in his hands. He can use the little things to remind you that he’s got the big things.

And that moment wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t asked. If I hadn’t “acknowledged him in all my ways.” I’m sure there are so many other moments I have missed because I didn’t ask. Because I forgot how much God sees me and cares. Thank you God for the reminder and the precious gift of the piano!

The action step today is to think about what your “piano” is. Is there something that you haven’t remembered to talk to God about? Something you haven’t asked for because it doesn’t feel ‘big enough’?

When you figure out what it is, pray. It’s that simple.

God cares about the little things

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