“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

I tease my husband quite a bit about his favorite Bible verses. It seems he’s always referencing them no matter what the issue is. I used to get annoyed by it, but lately I’ve been seeing the wisdom of it. Especially with the above verse, Proverbs 3:5-6.

I have a problem, a hang up. I call it overthinking. It happens quite often. I question myself, my motives, my plans. I worry about what people think and what will happen. I sometimes even script out future conversations so I’ll be prepared. I constantly question myself as to what is the best way to do things. It could be as simple as my daily to-do’s or I’ll reach back into the past and question how I’ve parented my children. In our 21st century world, we have a glut of resources at our fingertips that promise to optimize our lives and make them more efficient, more comfortable and just plain better. Who wouldn’t want that? But at the end of the day, all those choices leave my head spinning and my heart sliding into anxiety.

Overthinking, at its root, is about wrong belief. I was going to say unbelief, but we all believe in something, or someone. Notice the contrast in Proverbs 3:5 – trusting in the Lord is set against leaning on our own understanding. When I lean on my own understanding, trying to account for every possibility, anxious to make sure I’m prepared for any eventuality, I’m really trusting in myself. I’m believing that my knowledge of every situation is complete and without error. But our understanding is finite and flawed. And Proverbs tells us straight out to not depend on it. What does it say instead? Trust in the Lord. So the opposite of overthinking, of leaning on your own understanding is trusting in the Lord. It’s leaning on him, it’s acknowledging the vast, multidimensional, infinite difference between my understanding of what is going on in my life and in the world, and God’s.

The creation contains lessons about these differences. An ant may be one of the most diligent of God’s creatures but it will never ascend to the heights where eagles fly. The eagle may soar to great heights but it has no idea of the depths of the oceans where the whale swims. But God is the one who created all these things and more out of his infinitely glorious mind. Things seen and unseen. Wonders known and not yet discovered.

So when you are tempted to lean on your own understanding, look up to the sky and remind yourself of the God who holds everything together and gives to us our next breath. He is worthy of all our trust.