Proverbs 3:5-6 – Trust in the Lord

This pair of verses is perhaps the most often quoted pair from Proverbs 3, and for good reason. They describe the essence of the Christian walk.

Prov. 3:5-6      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.

The instruction starts with faith, which is simply trust that is placed in the Lord. The concept of faith has become so linked with religion these days that we forget what it really means, and how simple faith actually is. This passage allows us to get around the misunderstanding of faith, and talk about the better-understood root of faith – trust.

Trust is a part of everyday life and human relationships. When we speak of trust on a personal level, we think of granting someone a responsibility to do or keep something that is important to us. In the workplace, we trust employees or co-workers to complete certain tasks that will affect our own work. Amongst our loved ones, we trust them with parts of our hearts – our hopes and dreams; our dearest affections; our vulnerabilities and deepest secrets. Workplace harmony, friendship and love are thus all grounded in varying degrees of trust.

Generally speaking, we place greater trust in the people we judge to be trustworthy – in our experience with them, we have found them to behave responsibly and keep the things that we have entrusted to them. A relationship then develops as we discover the extent to which we can trust each other. However, even our closest friends and family members may break our trust, leaving us disappointed and heart-broken.

In the first verse of this pair, we are instructed to Trust in the Lord with all your heart. The level of trust required here is greater than the trust we invest in our human relationships. The Lord asks for all of our hearts – every aspect of who we are: every hope and dream, deepest longing, most painful secret, and greatest fear. This is beyond anything we should entrust to any individual person, as if this trust were to be broken, then our hearts would never recover. Consequently, we need to know that God is absolutely trustworthy, and that He will never let us down. One of the core characteristics of the God of the Bible is that He is trustworthy, or as the New King James translates it, He is faithful.

When introducing the law of God to the people of Israel, God’s character is described:

“Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments” (Deut. 7:9, emphasis mine).

This is confirmed again in the New Testament:

If we are faithless,

He remains faithful;

He cannot deny Himself.

(2 Timothy 2:13)

People are usually most trustworthy towards those whom they believe are also trustworthy. When it comes to human relationships, trust is a two-way street. Not so with God. He is faithful, and He cannot be unfaithful – His trustworthiness is an absolute certainty, whether or not we are faithful towards Him. As we develop a relationship with God, we will come to know this truth for ourselves, and we will see that trusting the Lord with all our hearts is the wisest and safest thing we could ever do.

The next part of verse 5 gives us a sharp contrast to trusting in God, and that is trusting in ourselves. Solomon counsels us to lean not on your own understanding. As wise and safe as it is to trust God, so it is equally foolish and dangerous for you to lean on yourself. The message of the world is that we ought to be strong, independent, and clever if we are to make it in this life. Using our own understanding to survive comes naturally to us – whenever we are in a tight spot, we try to think our way out of it. We start making plans and strategies to extricate ourselves from our circumstances, without realising our folly.

When we succeed in getting out of one situation using our cleverness, we lean harder on our own abilities. Yet we are not unbreakable, and there will come a day when the situation we find ourselves in is so far beyond our ability to cope that we snap. If you have ever leaned hard against something that broke under your weight, you will understand this principle. When you first start leaning on it, you are uncertain so you don’t put much of your weight on it. However, with a bit of time you start leaning a bit harder, and still it does not give way. Finally, as you finally place your whole body weight on it, it snaps. The result? You fall flat! If you had not leaned quite so hard, and if you had not put so much trust in it, then you may have stumbled, but not fallen.

The same is true for leaning on our own understanding. With the encouragement of the world, and a self-help book under one arm, you may set about leaning on yourself. At first, you seem to manage, so you lean a little harder. However, this process leads to the point when you are fully trusting in yourself. That is when the greatest test will come, and if you snap under the pressure, your fall will be very painful. We all have limits to our coping abilities, but God does not. Can you see the folly of leaning on yourself rather than One who by His very nature is absolutely faithful?

Saying that you should not lean on your own understanding does not mean that you should not use your understanding. The Christian walk is not about switching off your brain and senses and living in a surreal world where you do not think about practical things. Not at all. God created both your mind and brain, and He certainly expects you to use them!

How do we use our understanding without starting to rely on ourselves? The third and final instruction in the beginning of verse 6 gives us the answer: In all your ways acknowledge Him. To acknowledge God means two things – 1) Committing everything we do to Him, thus submitting our plans to His will; and 2) Thanking and praising Him in all that we do. Thus, we can use the understanding He has given us as a tool, rather than a crutch.

We can achieve the first of these points by asking a few simple questions about the plans we make using our understanding: Are these plans pleasing to Him? Are we willing to change our plans if they are contrary to His will for us? Will the outcome of our plans glorify Him? If the answer to these questions is yes, then we can say that we are fully acknowledging Him in our lives, and that all our plans and strategies are subject to His will.

In the second place, we acknowledge Him by making sure that we thank Him and praise Him in all things. This is more than just saying “Praise the Lord” publicly about everything; rather it is a deep attitude of thankfulness. Even when our plans go awry and our circumstances get worse rather than better, we need to praise God through it all. This is the practical application of trusting God, which we saw in verse 5. In every situation, we must understand God is with us and that He is working out His plan for our lives.

Finally, we are shown the blessing that comes from trusting God entirely: And He shall direct your paths. It is a truly mind-blowing thought that God, who created the universe, is actually willing to be involved in every detail of my life! Just think: He knows the future, He knows me better than I know myself, and He knows everything about everyone around me. He is infinitely wise, and He always has the very best intentions for my life. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Rom. 6:28 emphasis mine). Who better to direct my life than the Lord?