Leaning on His understanding.
- heartofanovice
- Feb 11, 2017
- 4 min read
Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Recently I read a blog post from John Bevere titled "God where are you taking me?" (link below), I was instantly intrigued. I read it and the thing I took most notice of was the scripture he used; the one I've placed above, Proverbs 3:5-6.
If you read my last post you would already know this; but for those who are just joining us, I recently differed my last year of my university degree to start bible college. I didn't go into too much detail about it earlier but to be honest it is probably the biggest steps of faith I have ever had to take. As I have also mentioned earlier this is my 5th uni course I have started since graduating high school, and I was pretty determined to finally finish this one.
So I don't know if you can imagine this, but I was stressing hardcore when I felt God put bible college on my heart. You know when people say "God will give you peace about it", there was not one bit of peace in my heart about it. All I could think was "ONLY HE WOULD GIVE ME THIS THOUGHT ONE YEAR BEFORE I FINISH MY DEGREE", I wasn't mad at God I'll make note of that; but its just so like him am I right?!
When this thought came to me my mind went straight to the worst, thinking about all the different scenarios in my head about what could happen if I defer my degree:
"what will others think?"
"I only have a year left, why not after uni?"
"what if I never go back to uni?"
"what if I fail and can go back to uni because I'm still repeating bible college subjects!?"
As you can see I wasn't completely sold on the idea when God first told me; so as any good christian would do, I pretended it wasn't a thought from God and left it for a few months. I carried on through the next part of the semester going into prac and getting the best grades I have ever gotten thinking "of course that wasn't a thought from God!", and I felt it on my heart again. So I spoke to my mum (who is the holiest person on the planet) and said what do you think; she was all about it cos thats her thing, she's wanted me to go to bible college since forever. I then still didn't do anything about it until one night my mum said something that I felt God used her to say, "just don't leave it any longer". That's when it hit me; if I was going to finish my degree and become a teacher, I would end up keeping bible college as 'that thing I'll do one day" then would finish uni, get a job and forget about it. It was from there that I differed and applied for bible college.
That wasn't the last of my worries about the decision, I have had many meltdowns and moments where I'm thinking this is the worst decisions of my life and I'm never becoming a teacher.
In comes why this scripture meant so much to me, after reading it I asked the question "what does it actually mean to lean on God's understanding?". So I googled "what does it actually mean to lean on God's understanding?", very profound, I know.
From my googling I came across a post from desiringgod.org called "the insanity of leaning on our own understanding" (link below). They had amazing points on what it means to lean on God's understanding, why it's better than our own, and how crazy it is when we don't.
This quote gave me some perspective:
"What we’re told not to lean on is our “own understanding,” meaning conclusions based primarily on our own perceptions. Because our own understanding simply will not bear the full weight of reality. It was never intended to."
It then came to me "if I'm always making decisions based on my own understanding, they don't have the full weight of reality". I realised I'd been hanging on to my own understanding so much to where it distorted my view of reality, which then was followed by my thoughts and actions. I was basing every thought and action around my 'future' instead of Jesus which is our actual future.
To action this scripture in my life and change my thinking I have put these actions into place:
Resting on his promising scriptures (to gain his understanding and not my own);
Resting on what he has actually told me to do (go to bible college) and not what he hasn't;
And, Pray earnestly that he shows me his promises and for him to keep me on his path.
HisI encourage you to also read into Proverbs 3:5-6, study it and read the articles linked below to get your own understanding. Feel free to comment below about your own revelations on this topic, like I said earlier this is a new thing for me to grasp too, letting God have full control and leaning on understanding is not the easiest when you haven't done it before.
For some final thoughts, my boyfriend sent me a scripture when I was worried the other day, it tells us not to worry and how God looks after us.
Matthew 6:25-34
> Take note of v.33 & 34 and hold them close to your heart.
Talk soon
Kristina xx.
Blog Links:
http://messengerinternational.org/blog/news/god-where-are-you-taking-me/
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-insanity-of-leaning-on-our-own-understanding
Picture from:
http://tumblr.hannahrosebeasley.com/post/88992265346/trust-in-the-lord-with-all-your-heart-and-lean
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