When You Lose It

Last night, I was playing my trombone along with the hymns at church. (Let me interject that I am by no way an expert at the trombone, as you will soon find out.) We were playing from a sheet of music when the air conditioning kicked on. This made the music start to wobble on the music stand. I reached my right hand to steady the music and ended up knocking it to the floor. When I tried to pick it up quickly, my slide fell off the trombone and onto the floor. The trumpet player sharing a stand with me couldn't play for two verses because she couldn't stop laughing.

This made me think of when you "lose it." Something goes wrong in your life, and when you try to fix it, something else falls apart. Pretty soon, you've lost it. I think I've talked about this before a time or two, but Proverbs 3:5-6 is appropriate here.

"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."

The opposite of trusting in the Lord is relying on your smarts and strength to get out of jams. Unfortunately, when we try to do things on our own, we usually end up "losing it." Instead, we ought to acknowledge the Lord in all our ways and allow him to straighten out our paths.