July 9, 2020 – Click here to listen
Yesterday my day began well but ended badly. First a friend who runs a ministry that I’ve donated a ton of money to went back on his word on a verbal agreement concerning some property and it cost me $125,000, thus proving that no good deed goes unpunished. This began a series of events throughout the day that were just as disturbing.
My wife and I pray together two times per day; she prays one prayer session and I pray the next. When it was her turn, she was so upset over all that had transpired during the day she was crying so much she had to cut her prayer short.
She was full of anxiety and disappointed in the day’s events and I mentioned Proverbs 3:5 to her which states that we are to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding. I reminded her that God had graciously blessed us financially and we could afford to absorb the financial loss and as for my friend . . . well, he has to live with his own mistakes. My final comments to him were that I wished him well with his ministry and that I hoped God would continue to bless it. I then clicked the “next button” and moved on.
When I told her not to lean on her own understanding, I was reminded that the book of Proverbs instructs us no less than eight times that understanding is to be sought and cherished and is even to be chosen rather than silver and who can forget, “blessed is the one who gets understanding.”
Hmmm . . . So, if we’re supposed to get understanding, why are we not supposed to lean on it or use it?
When we’re told not lean to on our “own understanding,” it refers to conclusions based primarily on our own perceptions. Our own understanding is limited when compared to God and will not reveal the full truths and realities of God’s plans for life . . . It was never intended to.
Faith is fully trusting in the Lord and not leaning on our own understanding in every situation. I’m not advocating doing something irrational; we should not set aside our intellect; however, we should rest our understanding or intellect upon the intellect of God. It is He who is omniscient, omnipotent; omnipresent; we are not. To trust Him in every situation, will ultimately lead to joy, and also will make our journey through this life itself joyful. Rather than resent the events of a bad day and dwell on it like a simmering coal ready to explode into flames, we should just take our lumps, accept it, and let it go and joyfully anticipate the wonderful things God will unfold next for His faithful children.
This is not to say that we can easily endure this fallen and evil world. It’s very difficult to have a silly village-idiot grin on our faces after they are slapped hard. It is to say that the Lord doesn’t want us to be miserable and He wants to relieve our anxiety, doubt, fears, unrighteous anger in such a manner that the slaps we receive in life aren’t even worthy of being called a blip when compared to the rewards afforded to His faithful. That is why He gave us Proverbs 3:5, that we may trust fully in the Lord and lean not on our own understanding during every battle. When we rest in His intellect versus our own, we win every battle.
Proverbs 14:33
Wisdom is enshrined in an understanding heart; wisdom is not found
among fools.