Category: Lessons from the Wise Guy
Trust unto the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your understanding. On all your roads know Him and He will straighten your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Solomon uses the metaphor of leaning to communicate the concept of trust. If we are going to place our weight on an object, we better be sure that it can bear us up. A big oak tree will do, a raspberry bush won't. When it comes to getting along in life, our discernment has less chance of supporting us than the raspberry bush. If it is wisdom we desire, then we need to rest our decision-making elbow on the only post capable of keeping us from falling on it.
The Greek translation renders the first clause of v5, "Be a man who has been won over (or 'persuaded') in the whole heart in dependence upon God." Trust is not something that we simply do, it takes strenuous effort to convince our mind and will that relying on God rather than our own instincts is the most rational possible conclusion we can reach. But reach it we must and with our entire heart. We must labor to be persuaded that this is so. Like most things in life, saying that we trust the Lord is easy; it's the actual trusting that we find difficult.
The world is filled with alternatives to trusting God. Humanism wants us to believe that man's intellect is indeed the highest form of intelligence. The omnicient God has been replaced with the omniscient sceintist. Given enough time and the right instruments, Dr, Darwin will solve all problems and conquer all foes. We just need to be patient and trust him. And whatever Dr. Darwin cannot fix, congress surely can. If we just establish the right government programs, we will find ourselves resting comfortably in Utopia's welcoming arms. Welfare, housing projects, social security, war on drugs, war on poverty, war on ignorance, war on war, it won't be long now until Unlce Sam enables us all to realize our dreams and live happily ever after.
Such is humanism's dogma. The one thing standing in its way, however, is religion. Believing in a benevolent, all-powerful God stands diametrically opposed to the secular-humanist's plan. His proverb is, Trust in Man with all your heart, and do not hope in superstition and a mythological deity, in all your ways know human ingenuity, and you will feel really good. Solomon presents us with a dilemma: trust God's wisdom or trust man's. One takes a man directly where he needs to go; the other finds him wandering around all over the place.