My Own Understanding

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. –Proverbs 3:5-6

I’ve known these verses practically since I could talk; unfortunately, sometimes when things become too commonplace in my mind, I tend to overlook the most conspicuous concepts. I have often become hung up on the “trust in the Lord” part, focusing on what that looks like in my day-to-day life. I can’t always articulate what I need to do in those times when “trust in the Lord” comes to my mind. What am I to do? Or, what am I not to do? I’ve often returned to the concept that I cannot mess up God’s plan, no matter what I choose in a challenging situation. He uses everything to work together in a most intricately brilliant fashion to bring about the necessary results.

I’ve come to the point of looking beyond the first clause of the sentence to decipher what trusting with all my heart might look like. A theme with which I’ve been wrestling this year is “lean not on your own understanding.” I have no trouble identifying what that looks like in my life; it’s only natural that as human beings, we tend to use prior knowledge and experience to make decisions and form hypotheses of sorts. I rely heavily on my own understanding–but here it clearly guides me not to lean on it. When I link this clause with the previous one, it becomes much clearer that a vital pillar in the structure of trusting the Lord is not to give ultimate credence to what I think I know or can predict or assume to be true or expected. That’s not a simple task, and like so many others, I anticipate I’ll be continuously learning to lean elsewhere for my understanding–on the only reliable source.

When I don’t know what to think or believe or choose, and I discount my own understanding, I sit in that abysmal place of indecision and pray for direction. When I don’t have a concrete plan in place and no viable option seems to stand out among the rest, what can I do? I can finish reading the verse, for starters: “In all your ways acknowledge Him…” What does that mean in the context of the situation at hand? I find peace in acknowledging His sovereignty; He has always come through, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. My encouragement for the new year is this: 1. Hide His Word in my heart. 2. Don’t overvalue my own understanding. 3. Find peace in His sovereignty.