⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. ⁶In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Trusting the Lord for wisdom is not just a mental activity. We must trust Him “with all” our heart. The word “trust” in the Hebrew is the most frequent idea of believing (LEX), and the term “heart” conveys “the richest biblical term for the totality of man’s inner or immaterial nature” (TWOT). In other words, we are called upon to take wisdom to the intensified level of being all in with the Lord! It’s an all-or-nothing deal.

Christian apologists point out that we must use our minds in thinking intelligently about God and faith for, after all, we read these words in Isaiah:

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. (Isa. 1:18)

Faith is not antithetical to using our minds. We are not to discard our intellectual, logical thought processes; they are essential to coming to faith. But reason alone is not sufficient for life, understanding, and wisdom. We are to “not lean on [our] own understanding,” for that by itself will not be enough. There are many ways to frame how we look at life, but there is only one true way that reflects reality. And that is to see life as God sees it, as He created it, and as He intends for us to live in it.

Trust takes what we think with our minds and spreads it to our entire being, including our emotions and will. We go from leaning in toward the knowledge of God to lying completely horizontal on Him. Interestingly, the related Arabic word carries the sense of “to throw one down upon his face” (BDB). We are to order our entire life in every aspect around God. Trusting in the Lord is like physically leaning over, to the point where you cannot hold yourself up without support. The ultimate support is to lie out flat on the ground. We trust God in the sense that, if it were to be found out that He doesn’t exist, then we are lost; there would be absolutely nothing sufficient to hold us up.

Paul wrote similarly in reference to belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ (using the word “hope” in the same sense as Proverbs uses “trust”): “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). Our trust in God (and in the resurrection of Christ) is so significant, so all-encompassing, that we are betting our eternal destiny on Him. If we are wrong, and God doesn’t exist (nor the resurrection of Christ), then we are complete fools, delusional in the most fundamental level of life.

An old statement conveys the certainty of one’s belief about a decision: “If I am wrong, then I will let you cut my right arm off.” Proverbs 3:5 is a way of saying, “I trust in God to the point that if I am wrong, then I acknowledge that I am destined for a lost eternity. I am putting, to use another old saying, ‘all my eggs in one basket.’” There is no plan B, no second option. If God doesn’t exist, then my living as though He did exist is the height of folly because, in the end, I am worse off for it. That is precisely the point Paul makes regarding the resurrection, “[I]f Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17)

So, we see that the fear of the Lord is to trust in Him completely, with our entire being, for life in its entirety. As we read earlier, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7), or we will read later, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10).

Lord, I trust in You for my salvation and my life. Help me see the areas where I don’t yet trust You in my daily living.