Proverbs 3:5-6 – A Deep Dive into a Well-Known Passage

“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 ESV

Such a familiar passage! It’s commonly quoted; many have it memorized – I even made a cross-stitch of it when I was in high school. And my mom’s friend had given her another one when I was little, so I saw these verses all the time when I was growing up. (What a blessing!) But lately I have seen some questions and confusion about what it’s telling us… and when we see confusion, whether in others or in ourselves, it’s always a good idea to dive deeply into Scripture to find clarity. God has provided all the answers we need!

So let’s do a Bible study! This is a short passage, but deep study can take some time and thought. I’ve always found diving into Scripture to be super rewarding, though – it’s worth all the time and effort we could ever invest! The depths of God’s Word are infinite and always fulfilling. So grab your Bible, a notebook, and a coffee, or your earbuds and a mindless chore, and let’s dive in!

Do Not Lean on Your Own Understanding…Wait, What?

I recently encountered someone online asking how we ought to understand the command, “Do not lean on your own understanding.” I had to slow down and contemplate how I would answer. Because while I always assumed I understood that verse just fine, it says I’m not supposed to lean on my own understanding, so…hm…maybe I shouldn’t think I understand it…huh. How could I tell if I do understand it? How can I be confident in what it means if I’m not supposed to lean on my own understanding of it? (And the questions started rolling in.) Does this mean I shouldn’t really ever feel comfortable that I understand anything? Does it mean I should second-guess anything I think I do understand? Does it mean that I shouldn’t bother even trying to understand? That’s a scary thought. (But wait, there’s more!) Does it mean my understanding is always wrong? Does it mean God wants us to turn off our minds and just have blind faith? (I’ve heard that claim before.) Does it mean we can’t trust anything we think we understand about anything, including God and His Word? Does it mean we can’t understand anything God says? That doesn’t seem right…but then, I’m not supposed to lean on my own understanding, so…um…yeah…. 

Any other overthinkers out there? (Please forgive me if I just created some new ones. I promise we’ll reel all that back in!)  

Take heart, you who love to understand as much as possible (like I do)! We can get ourselves into a tangle of questions sometimes, but there are answers. When we really study this passage (and look at the greater context of Scripture), we see very good evidence that those are all misunderstandings! 

Let’s start from the top, look closely, and find out what it’s really saying. We’ll begin by defining some words, because even with common words, getting a better grasp of the full meaning can make a huge difference. Let’s start with that first word:

“Trust…” 

What does it mean to trust?

Here’s something to ponder before we look at the definition: is trust a feeling? What do you think? Would you consider trust to be an emotion, or is it a choice of the will? In other words, do we have to feel trust, or can we choose to trust regardless of our feelings? Take a moment to pause and think about that. How have you been defining trust?

According to Merriam-Webster, to trust is “to rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of, believe; to place confidence in, rely on; to hope or expect confidently.” Ah. So trust is a reliance, a belief, a confidence, a confident hope or expectation. Some of those seem like emotions; some don’t. Maybe we could say they can all have an emotional component. Tiny rabbit trail: where do emotions come from? Generally speaking, our emotions stem from our thoughts and beliefs. So even if aspects of trust can have an emotional component, those components still originate with what we think and believe. If I’m trusting – or not trusting – in someone, I can trace that back to what I think or believe about that person. And thoughts and beliefs are things we can purposely choose. So that means trust is ultimately an act of the will at its root – a choice, not a feeling.

Interestingly, the definition of trust doesn’t address the why of trust. But that seems important. Why do we put our trust in… anything? Well, we make the choice to trust based on knowledge and evidence. We trust chairs to hold us up because we know that chairs were made to hold people, and because we have evidence from the chairs that have held us up in the past. When we trust people, it’s because of what we know or believe about them (whether personally or from the testimony of others) and the evidence of any past experiences we have with them. 

And who should we trust?

“Trust in the LORD…”

According to this passage, we are supposed to choose to trust in the LORD. When we see LORD or GOD in Scripture, in all capitals, the original Hebrew there is YHWH. God revealed this to Moses as His name in Exodus 3:15. YHWH is considered God’s covenant name, reminding us that He always keeps His Word, and its literal meaning has to do with His self-existence and self-sufficiency: “I am who I am.”

So we are to trust – to rely on the truthfulness and accuracy of – the one true God, on whom we depend for our very existence. We are to place our confidence in Him, to confidently hope in Him, to expect that He will do what He says. And this trust is based on evidence, as every trust should be. All throughout Scripture, over and over, we see God providing evidence of Himself and His trustworthiness before expecting people to believe in Him, to have faith in Him, to put their trust in Him, to obey Him. Look for it! It’s beautiful to see. He speaks, He acts, He delivers. He reveals Himself. God shows us in His Word that He doesn’t expect anyone to just trust with no reason. He never says, “Faith is blind, evidence is unnecessary.” He never says, “Don’t ask questions.” He always provides evidence and then expects faith. And He has provided evidence for us, too, through creation, through His Word, through history, and (for those who know Him) through His work in our individual lives. We have good reason – lots of good reasons, actually – to trust Him! 

We see that trusting God, then, is an act of the will; a choice to believe what He says, based on evidence He has provided. It’s not actually a feeling, and doesn’t depend on feelings – even though the next part of the verse tells us to trust Him with all our heart. Hm…

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart…”

What is our heart, biblically speaking?

We often think of our hearts, when we’re speaking figuratively, as simply the internal “place” where our emotions and feelings are, or maybe where they come from. But that’s not the only way God’s Word refers to our hearts. 

In Scripture, the word translated ‘heart’ does include our emotions, but it doesn’t just include our emotions. A survey of the uses of the word “heart” in Scripture will reveal that this actually refers to our whole inner person, and includes our thoughts and our will as well as our emotions. To confirm that, see Matthew 9:4, Mark 2:8, Psalm 4:4, Acts 5:4, Deuteronomy 8:5, Deuteronomy 9:4, Zechariah 8:17, Psalm 58:2, Deuteronomy 15:9, Romans 10:9, and Acts 11:23, to name a few. These verses say that we think in our hearts, ponder or meditate in our hearts, contrive or conceive of deeds in our hearts, know things in our hearts, say things in our hearts, devise or practice or plan things in our hearts, believe in our hearts, resolve or purpose in our hearts…and let’s not forget the verse we’re currently examining, Proverbs 3:5! “Trust…with your heart” – and we know now that trust is a choice, not a feeling. 

Now that we know our ‘heart’ is our whole inner self, biblically speaking, we can see that trusting in the Lord “with all your heart” means making the choice to trust Him with our whole self, with everything in us – our minds, our will, and, yes, also our emotions. Now, we can’t usually control our emotions as directly or as quickly as we can control our mind and our will, but as I mentioned before, our emotions almost always stem from our thoughts and beliefs. We are to use our will to make the choice to direct and submit our thoughts and beliefs to our good God and what He says, placing our confidence in Him and relying on Him. In doing this, we can usually effect change in our emotions, even if it might take a while. And even if our emotions never change, part of trusting God with our whole heart is trusting Him to help us deal rightly with those emotions rather than submitting ourselves to those emotions. 

And now we get to our original question:

What does it mean to not lean on your own understanding?

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.” 

Let’s look at some more definitions. What does it mean to lean on something? It means to rely on, to support oneself with. That brings to mind a crutch, or a cane, or a walker. Something that keeps us steady as we’re walking, something that supports us and keeps us from falling over. 

And what, exactly, should we not lean on? “Your own understanding.” There’s an important phrase in there that our initial spiral of questions overlooked, I think: your own. This phrase is there for a reason! This verse doesn’t tell us not to lean on understanding in general! It tells us not to lean on our own understanding. 

It may seem like the definition of “your own” should be pretty intuitive, but I looked it up anyway just for good measure, and I found it helpful! I realized something: “your own” is individual to each person. Ah! Light bulb! This points out that my natural understanding of any given thing is likely to be different from your natural understanding – we each have different viewpoints and experiences and preferences and tendencies and priorities and thoughts. So among the billions of people who have existed, there are potentially billions of different human-generated “understandings” that could be leaned upon – each one seeing from a different angle, and none seeing the whole picture.

So as we read it again – do not lean on your own understanding – we see that this verse doesn’t say ‘don’t try to understand.’ It doesn’t say ‘you can’t understand.’ It doesn’t say, ‘don’t lean on any understanding.’ It says our own understanding is not what we should support ourselves with. Our own understanding – our natural, human way of thinking – is not to be trusted, is not to be leaned upon. It’s not too hard to recognize that we humans have a limited perspective, especially compared to God; for that reason alone, we can see that our natural understanding is necessarily insufficient and likely flawed. Add to that the fact that our knowledge is limited, too, and that since we are sinners our morals and desires are not perfectly aligned with God’s, and we begin to see that our own understanding is a crutch that is weak, poorly made, fashioned from wood that’s rotten and corrupted (Ephesians 4:22). It will splinter, collapse, and buckle under the pressure from the world and from our sin, and it will crumple out from under us, leaving us on the ground, flat on our faces. 

As Jeremiah 17:9 explains, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”(ESV) We can’t even understand our own hearts, our own inner selves – and our hearts are deceitful anyway! So it begins to make sense why we should not be leaning on our own understanding. The understanding we naturally have from our own hearts – our own minds, emotions, and wills – is simply faulty, deceitful, and untrustworthy. 

God’s understanding, however, is completely trustworthy, just like Him. It’s sure. Solid. Strong. Stable. And there’s one more “s” – the understanding God offers us is singular. Where we each might have our own different and conflicting understandings, God has the one true understanding. It originates from Him, and He is the Author of all reality – so we know it’s the correct one. There is only one right interpretation of reality, only one right definition of truth, and only one right understanding of life – God’s own. We must understand things His way, or we are necessarily wrong.

Okay! We definitely understand this portion better now! But if we jump back into the overthinking spiral, we can still get disoriented. Because…if I understand, then I can call that my own understanding, right? So…aaargh! What do we do with that? Well, I believe the context makes it clear that this verse is talking about the source of our understanding, the foundation underneath the reasoning we use, the basis for how we understand and think and believe and choose. We lean on God’s understanding, which He has provided for us in His Word. If we are understanding things the way God says they should be understood, we are depending on His stability to hold us up, and our understanding is right. Because even though we have ‘understanding,’ it’s not from us; it’s not our own. It’s His. Beautifully, His Holy Spirit within us enables us to understand the wisdom He reveals and teaches us through His Word (1 Corinthians 2:6-16).

Actually, the whole book of Proverbs is expressly given to us to teach us wisdom, to help us think rightly, to offer us right understanding – just read Proverbs 1:1-6!

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
To know wisdom and instruction,
    to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
    in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
    knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
    and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
    the words of the wise and their riddles.
(ESV, bold mine)

We are meant to understand! We are meant to work to understand, and to pursue understanding! But not with our own means, not with our own internal guidance, not with our own judgment, not with our own hearts. We lack what we need to do that well; we can’t get it right without help. Our natures, our minds, our hearts are not perfect. Internally, we do not naturally align with God or His ways. On our own, we simply don’t have the knowledge or understanding we need to make good decisions that line up with reality as it really is, reality as God knows it to be. 

For further confirmation, we can check the greater context of Scripture. We see our Scripture-led and therefore God-provided understanding of this verse reiterated later in Proverbs: “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered” (Proverbs 28:26 ESV). Other Scriptures allude to it as well: the book of Judges, after detailing worse and worse (and worse) behavior by the judges and people of Israel, and repeatedly revealing that the people of Israel “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,” (Judges 3:7, 6:1, 10:6, 13:1), finally closes with this pronouncement: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25 ESV, bold mine). And we see in the New Testament as well that “…the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law…” (Romans 8:7 ESV). 

But God! He has provided all we need in His Word to be able to understand what is right and good, to set our minds on Him and submit to Him, and to equip us to live the way He wants us to live (read Proverbs 2:1-15 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17 for more on that!). God’s law, God’s understanding, God’s wisdom should be what we lean upon, rather than our own. And He has provided all of this for us in Scripture! What a gift. This brings Psalm 19 to mind: 

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned; 
in keeping them there is great reward.
(Psalm 19:7-11 ESV)

Such beautiful truth.

In the final section of this passage, we read, 

“In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.”

What do you think this verse means? Have you given it much thought? Take a second to put it into your own words. 

When I just read through it quickly, my natural tendency is to think it means something like, “If you pray before you do things, God will make them work out.” Or maybe, “Always remember God exists, and He will make things easy for you.” Hm. When I put it that way, it doesn’t seem to match up with what Scripture tells us in other places. “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus said. Paul talked about “suffering the loss of all things” and “straining forward;” that doesn’t sound like things always worked out so well. We read of taking up our cross and laying down our lives, of struggling against sin and wrestling with the enemy, of attacks and hunger and beatings (and more beatings), of weakness and persecution and insults and hardships and calamity (and those last five are all in one single verse!). Aha. So “straight” definitely doesn’t mean “easy.” Given the context of the rest of Scripture, let’s take a deeper look at this verse and find out what it really means. First things first:

What does it mean to acknowledge God in all our ways?

“In all your ways…” 

For a little word, “all” sure has a big meaning. All. Every bit. It leaves nothing out. The Hebrew translated as “your ways” is used figuratively, and means “course of life, action, undertakings.” Both of these are pretty straightforward…but do we slow down enough to really think about what this means? “In all your ways.” In the whole course of your life, in everything you do. I’ll repeat myself here: this leaves nothing out. Not the way we brush our teeth, not the way we talk with the service rep on the phone, not the way we react to bad drivers, not the things we do in private, not the way we go to bed at night. All your ways, all your actions. Everything you do. It all matters.

“…acknowledge Him…”

When we use the word “acknowledge” these days, we often use it to mean simple recognition. As in, “She acknowledged me with a head nod as she passed by.” And that matches with the first definition we get from a Google search: “accept or admit the existence or truth of.” I’ve often skimmed over this word, assuming this definition, thinking it just meant ‘recognizing God’s existence,’ which of course I do, and not really pondering what it might mean to ‘recognize God’s existence’ in all my ways. If we go to Mirriam-Webster, we get a somewhat different definition, and one that I think can make a big difference in our application of this verse: “to recognize the rights, authority, or status of; to disclose knowledge of or agreement with.” Ohhh. To recognize the rights and authority of God in everything I do; to disclose or reveal that I know Him, to agree with Him in everything I do – that’s different from just recognizing His existence. That’s quite different. 

God, my Creator, has the right and the authority to tell me what’s best – to tell me what to do and how I should be in every situation, in every moment. If I’m truly acknowledging Him in all my ways, then I am actually submitting myself to Him and doing things His way…leaning on His understanding, which is completely right and good and true. Aaaaaand it all begins to click together more and more strongly. 

So now we get to the last portion of this passage:

“…and He will make straight your paths.”

What does it mean that He will make our paths straight?

As I mentioned, it’s easy to assume the “straight paths” here means ease and comfort, but we know from the context of the rest of Scripture that it can’t mean that. To determine what it does mean, let’s start with the basics. 

From the immediate context, we can tell that this is meant metaphorically; the “paths” are the course of our lives. We see this word used the same way over and over in Proverbs; the literal meaning is always about a route, a pathway – like on a map – and it’s usually applied metaphorically to the way we live.

What does “straight” mean, then, in this context? In the original Hebrew, this word means, “to be or to make smooth, straight, or right.” If we think in literal terms for a moment, we can recognize that a path itself is not the same as what we encounter along a path, or even the same as the area that the path travels through. A path can be straight, but still have hills to climb. It can be smooth, but still be in areas where attacks or terrible storms might occur. It can be a right path, a ‘path of righteousness,’ but still go through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23). So straight, smooth, and right don’t have to mean “easy.” 

Since we know that the whole point of a path is to lead to a particular destination, perhaps that’s the point of this metaphor. Perhaps a “straight path” is one that leads us directly to our destination. Because if we’re not on a straight path, what kind of path are we on? A circuitous one. A crooked one, perhaps, or a warped one. A twisting, wandering, winding one; maybe even a misleading one – one that doesn’t get us where we want to go. One that takes us into danger…one that leads us astray. 

There is another verse in Proverbs that mentions ‘making paths straight,’ and it supports the idea of straight meaning direct. Speaking of “the woman of folly” (or a personification of folly, depending on the translation), it says, “She sits at the doorway of her house, On a seat by the high places of the city, Calling to those who pass by, Who are making their paths straight: “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,”” (Proverbs 9:14-16a NASB 1995, bold mine). Folly – foolishness – wants those who are walking a straight path directly to their destination to turn away from that straight path and go her way.

Given all that we’ve already learned in this passage, this makes total sense. If we walk in God’s ways, which are necessarily right and good, we will of course be on the path that takes us straight to the right destination – eternity with Him.

We see that when we acknowledge God in all our ways – submit to Him and follow His instructions, agree with Him about what is right and what is wrong, walk in the paths He has laid out for us in His Word – He will ‘make our paths straight,’ meaning that He will guide us directly to Himself, directly to His Kingdom, directly to eternal life, no matter what obstacles and storms and enemies come at us as we travel.

Proverbs 4 gives us more confirmation on this: 

I have taught you the way of wisdom;
I have led you in the paths of uprightness.
When you walk, your step will not be hampered,
and if you run, you will not stumble.
Keep hold of instruction; do not let go;
guard her, for she is your life.
Do not enter the path of the wicked,
and do not walk in the way of the evil.
Avoid it; do not go on it;
turn away from it and pass on. …
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know over what they stumble. …
Let your eyes look directly forward,
and your gaze be straight before you.
Ponder the path of your feet;
then all your ways will be sure.
Do not swerve to the right or to the left;
turn your foot away from evil.
(Proverbs 4:11-15, 18-19, 25-27 ESV)

Summary and Conclusion

Let’s read the whole passage one more time, and pull all this information together.

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.

Now that we’ve calmed that overthinking spiral, and answered our questions with the truth God has given us in His Word, let’s check our understanding against what God has told us.

When we memorize and apply Scripture, we should definitely stick to the actual words of Scripture. However, as I alluded to above, putting Scripture in our own words can be a helpful tool to check our understanding against the passage itself and against other Scripture, to process the meaning, and to help us see how to live it out. A quick caution: when we put Scripture into our own words, we’re not asking the question, “What does this passage mean to me?” We don’t get to decide what it means; God did that when He authored it. We only get to find out what it means. So instead, we’re asking, “What does this passage actually mean? What does God mean by this passage?” I encourage you to take a moment and answer those on your own! How would you explain the true meaning of this passage?

Here’s my paraphrase of Proverbs 3:5-6:

Choose to put your faith in the one true God with everything in you,
and do not depend on or follow your own heart or your own way of thinking (only God’s way is dependably true!).
Reveal your knowledge of Him and your submission to Him in everything you do, in your whole way of life,
and then you can’t go wrong, because His ways are always right and good, and He has provided you a right path that will get you safely Home with Him for eternity.

What do you think? Does that match with the true meaning? Is it a valid summary? Does it need correction, according to Scripture? Does it match with your answers? If not, where do they disagree? Biblically, what supports one over the other? (These are good questions to ask about anyone’s synopsis of any Scripture passage!)

I have so enjoyed studying this passage so deeply! I love the new depths of understanding. While my understanding of what it meant didn’t change, exactly, it certainly grew richer and more full – and more aligned with what God is actually telling us, as evidenced by other passages in His Word. It’s so beautiful to see the depth and clarity and consistency in God’s Word, even in passages we’re so familiar with! 

When we have (or hear) questions about Scripture, we can be assured that God has given us the answers we need. When we doubt our own understanding, that puts us in a great position! We don’t need our own understanding; we just need God’s, and He’s given it to us in His Word in every way necessary for us to be able to live our lives the way He wants us to. Dig deep!

I hope you’ll make the effort with me to truly study His Word; to make sure the foundation for our understanding is His understanding; to direct our feet, our ways, our minds, our every choice to follow the path He’s laid out for us in Scripture, which is a lamp to our path and a light to our feet (Psalm 119:105). We do not have to walk in darkness, with no way to tell what we’re stumbling over. We belong to the very light of the world (John 8:12), and He is always with us (Matthew 28:20), and His Word lights our way.

Such joyful truth!