The Danger of Following Our Own Wishes
Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not to your own understanding.


As we emerge from childhood, we learn to suspect the wisdom of our wishes. From some eminence in our pilgrimage we look back on the path, and see plainly how much of our trouble was caused by resolutely following our own will. We see how we sometimes turned aside from the true way because it seemed rough and circuitous; and how, in other places, attracted by the flowers or the scenery, we neglected the map and the sign-posts, and wandered among bogs and thickets, where we floundered in mire, or were torn with thorns; and to precipices, where we stumbled and were bruised, and might have perished. Thus, by bitter experience, we have learned that our will is not always the wisest. What we have prescribed to ourselves as medicine has proved to be poison; the cup we have clutched as sweeter than honey has become more bitter than gall. We resolved to take the helm into our own hands, and have struck on hidden rocks. We have gone where the moss was brightest, and the quagmire has nearly choked us. We have glided where the ice seemed smoothest, and it has given way in the moment of our greatest exhilaration.

(Newman Hall.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

WEB: Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don't lean on your own understanding.




Self-Distrust and Trust in God
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