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 NKJV
One of the memories I have from my
childhood was memorizing scripture in Sunday School in order to win a
prize. Of course, looking back now I
wonder if this was some sort of bribery to get me to do something I might not
have wanted to do at the time, but whatever it was it worked. The reason I mention this is that one of the
prizes I received was a plaque which I got to paint by myself which had this
passage from Proverbs on it. It hung in
my bedroom for as long as I could remember, and this is a passage that I have
never forgotten.
The reason for writing the book of
Proverbs is given to us in the first five verses of the book where Solomon
tells us this;
The proverbs of Solomon the son of
David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, To perceive the words of
understanding, To receive the instruction of wisdom, Justice, judgment, and
equity; To give prudence to the simple, To the young man knowledge and
discretion-- A wise [man] will hear and increase learning, And a man of
understanding will attain wise counsel, Proverbs 1:1-5 NKJV
Even as a young boy, I understood the
stories about how Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived and as a result
came to the conclusion at an early age that this was one book I should pay a
lot of attention to if I wanted to be smart. Since this passage meant so much
to me, I thought today, as always, I would take a little time to just share
with you what it says to me, and hope that you will in turn take some time to
study it and reflect upon it with the hope that it will be as much help to you
as it has been to me.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart…The first thing I see
here is that rather than just instructing us to trust in the Lord, Solomon
tells us to trust Him with all of our “heart”. The
Hebrew word for heart used here is leb which means a whole lot more than you might think. It can be used to refer to the inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding,
inner part, midst, midst (of things), heart (of man), soul, heart (of
man), mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory, inclination, resolution,
determination (of will), conscience, heart (of moral character), as seat of
appetites, as seat of emotions and passions, as seat of courage. When you
look at it this way, trusting the Lord with all your heart is a commitment to
place your entire life, thoughts as well as actions, into the hands of God.And lean not on your own understanding…What seems obvious to me now, but took me a very long time to figure out, is that Solomon is saying that a wise man trusts God with his heart, and not his head. What I see here is simply that we have a choice to either totally commit to trusting every facet of our lives to God, or holding back at times and using our own “wisdom” to figure something out. Now given a choice to trust the God of the universe who knows the past, present, and future, or trusting in my own often demonstrated ignorance, it really does seem like the proverbial “no brainer”. Yet how often do we all decide that we know enough to try and solve our own problems without so much as a prayer for guidance directed to the God who knows all?
In all your ways acknowledge Him…The Hebrew word for “all your ways” is derek, which means way, road, distance, journey, manner. Obviously Solomon is talking about our journey through life and absolutely everything we might encounter along the way. It took me a very long time to figure out that there was nothing in my life so small that I had no need to talk to God about it. Why is it that we always are looking to make our own decisions and “direct” our own path through life without even considering whether or not it might not be what God had in mind for us. Do you remember a popular country song a few years ago called “Jesus Take the Wheel” sung by Carrie Underwood? I can’t help but think we often do that very thing. The cry for help only comes when we realize we can’t do anything to help ourselves and life is spinning out of control because we insisted on “driving” and ended up in trouble.
And He shall direct your paths…Have you ever considered letting Jesus take the wheel all the time and never worrying about where He is taking you? This is exactly what Solomon is trying to tell us in this passage, and in reality, in the whole book of Proverbs. If I were to try to explain what Proverbs is all about I would have to say that the most repeated idea in the entire book is that God has all the answers! What Solomon takes the time to tell us is that there are really only two types of people in this world; wise men or fools. The wise listen to God, seek His face, and allow Him to direct the path we are to walk. The fool? Obviously he is the one who chooses not to listen to the wisdom of God and seeks to direct his own path through life.
If you feel as if your life is not going quite the way you wanted, and there seem to be more problems than not, ask yourself “who’s driving”? Starting today try to follow Solomon’s advice and “lean not on your own understanding”.
Keep watching.
