My 6 year old daughter attends a Christian school. Every week the students have to memorize a passage of scripture. Last week it was Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

It’s a pretty familiar verse, so, sadly, it doesn’t pack the punch for me it once did.

My 4 year old daughter attends a children’s class on Wednesday nights at our church. Every week they have the children memorize a passage of scripture. Last week it was the first half of Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”

It’s a pretty familiar verse, so, sadly, it doesn’t pack the punch for me it once did.

My 35 year old husband is a Christian. Every time I write a blog post, he reads it. Last week he commented on a post with Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

It’s a pretty familiar verse, so, sadly, it doesn’t pack the punch for me it once did.

My twitter feed is full of posts by friends and celebrities that often quote scripture. Last week someone I follow posted Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

It’s a pretty familiar verse, so, sadly, the Lord has to BEAT ME OVER THE HEAD WITH IT before I pay any attention to Him. Lucky for me He’s not opposed to doing that.  And it doesn’t hurt too much. And we laugh about it later.

I like to think I’m fairly good at trusting God. It’s the “lean not on your own understanding” that gets me.

You mean sometimes I have to do things that don’t make sense to me? Or, worse, I have to do things that go against what sense I do have?

If I can’t trust the intellect I have to steer me right, I feel like I’m up a creek without a paddle. I panic. I feel paralyzed. How do I make decisions if my decision-making device – my knowledge – isn’t trustworthy?

Well, for one thing, I don’t think this verse is declaring my own understanding completely null and void. God gave us intellect to help guide us in life. The Bible encourages us to search for wisdom and pursue knowledge.

But I think this verse is trying to communicate that we shouldn’t only or primarily depend on our own understanding.

First and foremost, we are to trust in God – to lean on Him. 

We put our weight – the bulk of our confidence – on His understanding. When our own understanding – our logic and experience and observations – is complementary to God’s understanding, we gain additional support from ourselves. But when our own understanding conflicts with God’s understanding, if we are trusting in Him, we won’t fall despite the noticeable absence of our own understanding.

He is strong enough to support us with or without the help of our intellect. Let’s trust Him.