Proverbs Chapter 3

God                                        Your own understanding

There are a lot of great proverbs (brief words of wisdom) in this chapter. Please leave a comment below about with one stuck out for you. Here's a summary of what I said about my favorite in the sermon message from yesterday...

If the government made it illegal to have a Bible, and someone came in here right now to confiscate all of them... and I had only time to memorize proverb from Chapter 3 before they scooped up my Bible it would be this one:

Trust in the Lord with all you heart - and lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

It seems to me that we have two basic choices of what to lean on -
       1) God or
       2) something else.

To lean on God is to lean on a solid stone wall. To lean on your own understanding is to lean on, for example, a banner pole. It's good for holding up some stuff - like banners - but not your life.

God gave us the ability to reason, and it is good for lots of things. But when our reason conflicts with what God says (and it seems to quite often), our own understanding will topple like a banner pole when you or I lean on it.

Here's just one example of when we need to "Trust God with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding":

"Our own understanding" tells us that being disciplined means God doesn't love you - or that disciplining your child is not being loving. But God says....like He did in our chapter today, discipline means Love. Trust God when He says that.

This proverb is so important that I think we need to tatoo it onto our brains. Memorize it. We already have a memory verse for February, but I think now we have one for March.

Where do you need to trust God this week?  Don't forget what happens when you lean on your own understanding (the banner pole) and what happens when you lean on God (the rock-solid wall).   Amen.