“lean not on your own understanding” fucked. me. up. yes, i understand the context in which it was written thousands of years ago but i’m not talking about that. i’m talking about how that verse has been weaponized by modern evangelical christianity to abuse and maintain control over people. to smother any critical thinking, resistance, independence, individualism, and more. this post doesn’t have a point. i am just pissed about my religious trauma and all the fighting i had to do just to trust my gut, my instincts, and my own critical thinking. i’m angry about all the years of loving, growing, and discovering myself that i lost to the spiritual abuse from the church.
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"do not lean on your own understanding; lean on God's understanding"
I actually am not capable of escaping my own consciousness. Any and all understandings that are not my own end up getting filtered through my own ability to understand.
"oh but God can just make you understand"
HMMM convenient that he can make me understand something now in order to justify this proverb, but when it comes to explaining suffering it's all "the Lord works in mysterious ways that we can never hope to understand."
I only have my own understanding to lean on.
"Your heart is deceitful. Your emotions fluctuate and you can't trust them."
This is like saying that if you're reading updates to a news article throughout the day, the article can't be trusted because it's changing. Just because things fluctuate, doesn't mean they aren't trustworthy. Emotions provide you information about your body and its needs. Just like the updated news article, some of it is going to be useful for making decisions and some of it won't be. Robust, emotionally intelligent education about managing our emotions and knowing what to do with them is necessary here. Our emotions aren't inherently false, nor should they be discarded wholecloth. Teaching people they can't trust their emotions is worse than not teaching people anything at all about how to deal with their emotions, because it comes with actively harmful practices.
Telling people they cannot trust their emotions, and that they can only truly trust a being outside themselves, hinders the development of healthy emotional regulation skills and increases susceptibility to abuse and manipulation.
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“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do and he will show you which path to take.” —Proverbs 3:5-6
“When my girls were little, my husband liked to toss them up in the air (just a little) and catch them. They would squeal with delight each time they became airborne and then caught safely by the hands of their father. It’s the ultimate picture of trust. My girls didn’t have to question whether or not daddy would catch them. They knew. Daddy always catches you. You can trust him with all your heart.
As a child of God you can trust God with all your heart. Trusting God means not depending on your own understanding. When God called Abraham to leave his country, his relatives and his father’s family, God didn’t tell him where he was going. He just told him to go “to the land that I will show you.” Even though Abraham didn’t know where he was going, he trusted God and didn’t depend on his own understanding.
Some would say Abraham followed God blindly, but Abraham left Ur of the Chaldeans with full knowledge that the God He loved and followed was trustworthy. He knew that if God was going to toss him and his family in the air, He would always catch them. He could trust God with all his heart. He didn’t need to depend on his own understanding.”
—Wendy Richmond
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Trust In The Lord With All Your Heart (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT
[5] Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. [6] Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
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Do You Have a God-Given Dream?
By Adrian Rogers
“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.” Proverbs 3:5-6
You don’t find the will of God; the will of God finds you. You get your heart right with God. You present yourself to Him. You have the mind of Christ, you get in the stream, and you’ll find out that God will be…
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“When God Gave Me More Than I Could Handle” By Dr Michelle Bengtson:
“People, Christians included, often say that God won’t give you any more than you can handle, but that’s just not true. We’ve gotten it all wrong. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God won’t give us more than we can handle. It says he won’t let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, and that he will provide a way out of temptation so that we can handle it.
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
But that’s talking about temptation, not enduring the trials and hardships of life. I would go so far as to say that God absolutely does give us more than we can handle! But He does so for a purpose. To those who so often say to me, “I don’t know how you handle everything you’ve been given,” I don’t. Repeatedly God has brought me to the place where I can’t handle it on my own. I can’t do it without Him.
Life is hard. Life is weighty. Life is overwhelming. We can’t do it alone, without Him. That’s why Jesus comforted us with the promise that,
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Jesus doesn’t ask us to carry the load by ourselves. Jesus beckons us to find our refuge, our strength, our peace in Him when life is just more than we can handle on our own.
When you feel like giving up, giving in, and letting go, God is holding on to you. When we experience difficulties that are too great for us to handle, they remind us that we must depend on God.
“For I am the LORD your God, who upholds your right hand, Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you’” (Isaiah 41:13).
“The LORD also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, A stronghold in times of trouble” (Psalm 9:9).
When you’re weak, God wants to be strong for you. He wants to be the rock that you lean on, the strong tower that you run to. The times that overwhelm us show us that God is our source of strength.
“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him” (Psalm 28:7).
“But the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; He is their strength in time of trouble” (Psalm 37:39-40).
The times that overwhelm us show us that God is our source of strength. When you feel weak, lost, and scared, not even sure where your next breath will come from, take God’s hand and know that He’s going to help you through it, one moment at a time. The times that are too difficult to handle on our own teach us to trust God even when we cannot see.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
“Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock” (Isaiah 26:4).
When all you can do is cry, God is a safe place to do that because He promises to dry your eyes. When we are faced with difficulties that are more than we can handle on our own, we have an opportunity to experience God as our refuge.
“God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1).
“As for God, his way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 18:30).
We will go through the hard times but never alone or without His helpful, guiding hand. So, does God give us more than we can handle on our own? Yes. But He makes us a promise that is worth holding onto:
“When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you” (Isaiah 43:2).
We will go through the hard times, the fiery times, the overwhelming times, but never alone, and never without His helpful, guiding hand.
The question is, will you trust Him with those heavy, overwhelming burdens that are more than you can handle?
Because of Him, #HopePrevails!”
(Slightly abridged. Full Web article here.)
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"Trust in the Lord !!" 1/25/2023 Written by Louis Mize, a good friend
“Our Daily Bread” http://odb.org
The Daily Devotions of Greg Laurie http://www.harvest.org/devotional
Here is a link to 10 scripture verses on trusting in the Lord- https://www.gracefullittlehoneybee.com/10-bible-verses-trusting-god/
Written by Louis Mize, a good friend @ https://www.facebook.com/louis.mize
“Trust in the Lord !!”
In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be…
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