Words to Live By- Proverbs 3

 Words to Live By

Proverbs 3:5-8 (ESV)

5Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

The book of Proverbs is full of wisdom and words to live by. This passage in Proverbs 3 sums up this wisdom in a simple to understand proverb. Truly, the key to successful living is to trust the Lord with all your heart and not lean on your own understanding. That’s hard for some of us who want to understand everything, but it the key to health on well being to deer the Lord and turn away from evil. In this age when we are inundated with data and information, how do we discern what is true? In order to make a straight path through all the disinformation , we need to rely on the Lord’s wisdom, and not on our own understanding . It seems counter-intuitive to us to not trust our own understanding in order to make sense out of the world, but that is what the Proverb is telling us to do. The Lord’s wisdom is greater than our own understanding and in trusting in Him we will find true peace, justice and truth. The world promises unlimited learning and intelligence, artificial and otherwise, but it is only the Lord that truly embodies all of the wisdom of the universe. 

This may seem odd to you coming from one trained in the sciences, but I have learned that the more you know about the workings of the universe, the more you have to trust in the infinite wisdom of the Creator. In the final analysis, a random, secular evolution could not possibly account for the vast complexity that we find in the real world. Even with our tremendous study and research, there are many things in the universe that we can not explain; things to complex to be explained by random chance. George Washington Carver learned this lesson well when he told the Lord that he was not intelligent enough to understand the universe, but could he understand the peanut. The Lord answered this prayer by revealing myriads of things about the peanut to him that enabled him to invent thousands of useful products. So be like George  and trust in the Lord with all your heart and no not lean on your own understanding .