Lean Not on Your Own Understanding?!!!

Proverbs 3: 5  “Lean NOT on your OWN understanding”

What in the world does this mean?  This is a tough pill to swallow if you ask me.  I want to know the why behind what is going on in my life!

I went through some of the darkest times in my life a few years ago and to this day cannot figure out what in the world God did or was doing in that situation I had put myself into.  I will probably never know, but I deeply wished he would give me a glimpse at some point, so that I would know it was not a wasted three years of my life.  That was how I felt.  But then I realize that part of my healing process is just that….not trying to figure it all out, letting go, trusting.  The reality of what I always knew mentally became something that I now lived in my heart.  God has a bigger picture to deal with than just my limited tunnel vision of life.  And that is where I have put my hope.

So here is what I think it means:

A close friend recently shared how several years ago she had been laid off from her job.  Very disappointing.  With jobs being hard to come by she took a job at a drug rehab center.  It was a tough job and a place where she felt that her skills just didn’t fit the requirements, but it helped pay the bills.  She kept asking “Why God do you have me in this situation?”

Eventually she got the opportunity to move on to another opportunity that better fit her skills, but during the transition period, she got word that a nephew of hers was having some severe drug issues and needed help desperately.  No where to go.  With the connections she had made at this rehab facility, she was able to get him the help he needed.  Did all this occur in order to save this young mans life?

Lean NOT on your OWN understanding!

A minister was in a particular dry spell, feeling like he had not heard from God in a while.  As he was driving through a part of the city he normally would not be in, became so frustrated he decided to pull over and take a walk in a park he was passing by.  As he is walking through the park notices a man in ragged clothes, sitting by himself at a park bench with tears in his eyes.  He stops to visit with the man.   They talked for hours.  He heads back to his car and heads home.

That next Sunday after the service, a woman from his membership approached him and asked him if he had met a man in a park that week.  He said yes.  It turned out that this man was the ex husband of this woman and had reached the end of his rope in life.  The pastor’s conversation helped turn this man around.  Was his dry spell a way to get him to that bench on that day to speak with that man?

Lean NOT on you OWN understanding!

There is so much more going on around us and in the world spiritually beyond what we can see through our limited tunnel vision.  Things are going on that we are totally oblivious too. We have no idea of the things that God is orchestrating in our lives and in the lives of others.  All he asks of us is to trust Him.  Quit trying to figure it out, trust.

Maybe in times when we are having our worst struggles, it is time that we stop asking “God what is going on here?” and start looking at what God is wanting to do here?!  But what does it mean to trust.

I remember a simple explanation that was given to me many years ago about trusting.

I have this favorite place I like to sit when I’m watching TV.  When I sit down on this sofa, it never occurs to me to ask “I wonder if it will hold me up today?”  Can you imagine how nerve racking that would be if you had to do that every time you sat down during the day. No you trust that this chair will take care of you.  If we can trust a chair, can’t we trust God?  I think that is the type of trust that God is looking for in us.  Sitting back, relaxing, trusting, knowing he somehow has control of the bigger picture, and I’m some how a part of it.

I’m sure you have experienced similar situations.  We sometimes get so focused on our own problems we forget stories like this.  You may have similar situations you can relate to as well.  It is always good to hear how God worked in His way on events in others lives.  it helps us to see a bit more of how God’s bigger picture works.

Lean NOT on your OWN understanding!