I was walking through a room, nonchalantly, and as I rounded a corner … BAM! There it was hanging on the wall. Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” Funny how God sometimes hits us seemingly out of nowhere and guides our thoughts into something He wants us to hear. I’ve read this verse so many times, memorized it, meditated on it. And yet something different stood out to me this time: do not lean on your own understanding. How do we trust God? By not leaning on our own understanding.
Maybe that sounds easy enough. But my thoughts went farther with Solomon’s teachings. In Proverbs 1:7 Solomon says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” And by the time we get to Proverbs 4, Solomon is so adamant about us listening to his instruction, getting wisdom, and gaining understanding, that in 4:7 he says, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get Wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” But we do not lean on our own understanding. So where does it all start? Back to Proverbs 1:7 and 3:5, the fear of the Lord, and trusting in Him with all our heart.
Picture yourself leaning on a fence post that overlooks a river. Do you respect the foundation that post is giving you? Do you fear that post, knowing that without it you will fall and die? The depth of your understanding, the wisdom for the situation, the knowledge needed to make the right choices, starts with “the fear of”. It’s a healthy fear. It respects. It reveres. It trusts. It bows to the Sovereign.
We bow to the one and only Sovereign God.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.”