Lean not on your own understanding

“Lean not on your own understanding”

I could only see part of the story then…thinking that my marriage was going to glorify the Lord. Buying books to build my cooking skills, my hosting and hospitality. I dreamed of the people we would serve together, the ways we could open up our home and the edifying/fellowship that could occur.

And I can only see part of the story now…walking through my pregnancy without my husband, free of abuse but hurting and collecting the pieces left. I’m giving my brokenness, my love, my adoration, all of me, to the Lord and letting him build something new. 

Proverbs 3:5-6
”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.”

I went to visit a friend who lives by the beach recently and she said something that will stick with me forever. “God doesn’t make things better, he makes them new.” We are a brand new creation in him and we must allow him to break our old self into something new. Something that imitates and looks more like Christ. 

“God doesn’t make things better, he makes them new.”

I don't know what my future on earth holds. Right now I’m working on being in the right headspace for my coming baby. Getting what they need, building my business, trusting and growing in my knowledge of our Lord. But what I do know is the Father’s eternal goal. I know what the Lord desires for his people. I know he’s going to unify all things in him. (Ephesians 1) My hope and trust is in what he has revealed, not in what he hasn’t.

“My hope and trust is in what he has revealed, not in what he hasn’t.”

Just think through what life looks like when we lean on our own understanding? Like picking an abusive spouse. Or any choice we made with limited understanding and relying on our own resources and understanding? Now sometimes we can’t see…and please, do not blame yourself. We can learn from this and grow. Don’t beat yourself up for ignorance or things you couldn’t have known. Use your story to grow in Christ, mane wise decisions, and help others. If I had crumbled and never gotten up because who could understand how someone could treat another so cruelly, someone who they vowed to love and protect? Only God sees and understands our hearts. And that's why he gives us wisdom to navigate this life and relationships. It’s time we use it. He says to treat wisdom as our sister and insight as our closest friends, to keep us from the forbidden women and the adulteress with her smooth words! Ain’t that interesting? The red flags we missed from ignorance, ignored from low self worth, dismissed from a lack of knowledge, he says wisdom would have kept us! I don’t know about you but I want and NEED that wisdom. I want to walk worthy of the calling to which he called us (Ephesians), I want to make wise decisions and live! Not just survive.

The things he revealed to me about myself while I’ve been healing I have needed so badly. I could've used it before I got married but he was faithful to use my suffering to show me what I couldn't see or get otherwise. I gave him parts of me I never knew I needed so that he could build something new in him. I will share more on that in a future post, about idolizing romantic love and marriage and motherhood, about having borderline nihilistic views, about the things that hindered me from living more fully in him. Things that led me to depression more than it led me to Christ. To think he would teach me how to battle depression while I was experiencing the worst pain I've ever felt. Gave me a hope in him I never had because I had nothing else to fall on. Isolated, alone, and hurting. Laying in bed all day crushed from the weight and oppression of all the spiritual, emotional and psychological things going on in my home. He was faithful! And he still is. May we learn to lean on our own understanding. May we truly rely on his word as if there is no other knowledge to hold so close, because there isn't!! Like a babe, may we cling to him, learn from him like a child seeking understanding on how to live this life and not on our perceived knowledge from growing up in the world. It would only lead us astray. 

That is why I chose these words for this design, “Lean not on your own understanding.”. 

Get the case here:
Verse Iphone Case