The Folly of Self-Reliance

 

The Bible App's Verse of the Day yesterday was Proverbs 3:5-6. A familiar passage to most church-goers.

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.

It's a verse that has become thematic in my prayer and intercession these past two months. 

The Lord highlighted it to me as I compiled lesson plans on the story of Queen Esther for Kenyan children in Msambweni this past November, and He has brought it to my heart as I've pondered what He's urging His people toward in 2023. 

So when it popped up yesterday, curiosity laid hold of me and I had to see what Charles Bridges had to say about it. 

His is the only commentary I own on the Proverbs, but it's an insightful, thorough, and encouraging read (or at least, what I've read so far!). I sometimes use it as a devotional, it's just that good.

Charles H. Spurgeon praises Bridges' exposition as "The best work on the Proverbs." 

If that's not recommendation enough for us, I'm not sure what is. 

I've included Bridges' entire piece on Proverbs 3:5-6 below. Anything in bold is my emphasis, as well as text in red.

Drink deeply of the wisdom, and be blessed.

...

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths (Proverbs 3: 5-6).

This is the polar-star of a child of God – faith in his Father’s providence, promises, and grace. The unmeaning expression of trust on the lips of the ignorant and ungodly is a fearful decision. What ground of confidence can there be when there is everything to fear? Can the sinner’s God – a just, avenging God – be an object of trust? What owe we to that precious atonement, which has opened up our way to a reconciled God,[1] and assured our confidence in him as our Friend and Counsellor! Nor is this the assent of the enlightened judgement. It is the trust of the heart, of all the heart. It is a childlike unwavering confidence in our Father’s well-proved wisdom, faithfulness, and love.[2] Any limit to this confidence is a heinous provocation.[3] He is truth itself. Therefore he would have us take him at his word, and prove his word to the utmost extent of his power.

But our trust must not only be entire: it must be exclusive. No other confidence, no confidence in the flesh, can consist with it.[4] Man with all his pride feels that he wants something to lean to. As a fallen being, he naturally leans to himself, to his own foolish notions and false fancies. Human power is his idol. His understanding is his God. Many would want to be convicted of want of principle than want of talent. Many bring God’s truth to their own bar, and cavil at it, as an excuse for rejecting it. In these and other ways, man “trusteth to himself, and his heart departeth from the Lord.”[5] This is the history of man from the fall; the dominant sin of every unhumbled heart; the lamented and resisted sin of every child of God. Need we avert to it as the sin of youth? How rare is the sight of the “younger submitting unto the elder!”[6] If advice is asked, is it not with the hope of confirming a previously-formed purpose? In case of a contrary judgement, the young man’s own understanding usually decides the course. (oof!)

Great reason then is there for the warning – Lean not to thine own understanding. Once, indeed, it gave clear unclouded light, as man’s high prerogative, “created in the image of God.”[7] But now, degraded as it is by the fall,[8] and darkened by the corruption of the heart,[9] it must be a false guide. Even in a prophet of God it proved a mistaken counsellor.[10] Yet though we refuse to lean to it, to follow it may be implicit trust in the Lord; because it is a trust in his Divine power, enlightening it, as his lamp for our direction. The Christian on his knees, as if he cast his understanding away, confesses himself utterly unable to guide his path. But see him in his active life. He carefully improves his mind. He conscientiously follows its dictates. Thus practical faith strengthens, not destroys, its power; invigorates, not supersedes, exertion.[11]

It is therefore our plain duty not to neglect our understanding, but to cultivate it diligently in all its faculties. In a world of such extended knowledge, ignorance is the fruit of sloth, dissipation, or misguided delusion. But lean not to thine own understanding. Lean – trust in the Lord. Self-dependence is folly, rebellion, and ruin.[12] 

‘The great folly of man in trials’ – as Dr. Owen justly remarks – ‘is leaning to or upon his own understanding and counsels. What is the issue of it? Whenever in our trials we consult our own understandings, hearken to self-reasonings, though they seem good, and tending to our preservation; yet the principle of living by faith is stifled, and we shall in the issue be cast down by our own counsels.’[13]

Next – let our confidence be uniform – In all thy ways acknowledge him. Take one step at a time, every step under Divine warrant and direction.[14] Ever plan for yourself simple dependence on God. It is nothing less than self-idolatry to conceive that we can carry on even the ordinary matters of the day without his counsel. He loves to be consulted. Therefore take all thy difficulties to be resolved by him. Be in the habit of going to him in the first place – before self-will, self-pleasing, self-wisdom, human friends, convenience, expediency. Before any of these have been consulted go to God at once. Consider no circumstances too clear to need his direction. In all thy ways, small as well as great; in all thy concerns, personal or relative, temporal or eternal, let him be supreme. Who of us has not found the unspeakable “peace” of bringing to God matters too minute or individual to be entrusted to the most confidential ear? Abraham thus acknowledged God. Wheresoever he pitched a tent for himself there was always an altar for God.[15] In choosing a wife for his son there was a singular absence of worldliness. No mention was made of riches, honour, beauty; only of what concerned the name and honour of his God.[16] Thus did the wise man’s father in all his ways acknowledge God, asking counsel of him in all his difficulties, and never disappointed.[17]

(If I could highlight this entire last paragraph, I would! Come ON, brotha Bridges!)

Now if we be weaned from the idolatry of making our bosom our oracle, and our heart our counsellor; if in true poverty of spirit we go every morning to our Lord, as knowing not how to guide ourselves for this day; our eye constantly looking upward for direction,[18] the light will come down.[19] He shall direct thy paths. We want no new revelations or visible tokens.[20] Study the word with prayer. Mark the Divine Spirit shedding light upon it. Compare it with the observation of the providences of the day;[21] not judging by constitutional bias (a most doubtful interpreter), but pondering with sober, practical, reverential faith. Let the will be kept in a quiet, subdued, cheerful readiness to move, stay, retreat, turn to the right hand or to the left, at the Lord’s bidding; always remembering that is best which is least our own doing, and that a pliable spirit ever secures the needful guidance.[22] We may “be led,” for the exercise of our faith, “in a way that we know not”[23] – perhaps a way of disappointment, or even of mistake. Yet no step prayed over will bring ultimate regret. Though the promise will not render us infallible; our very error will be overruled for deeper humiliation and self-knowledge; and thus even this mysterious direction will in the end be gratefully acknowledged, “He led me forth in the right way.”[24]

-    Charles Bridges’ Proverbs (Chapter III. 5,6)

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[1] Romans 5:11

[2] Psalms 78. 2 Chronicles 14:11. Contrast Jeremiah 1:6-8

[3] Psalms 78: 18-21

[4] Compare Philippians 3:3

[5] Jeremiah 17:5

[6] 1 Peter 5:5

[7] Genesis 1:26. Colossians 3:10

[8] Psalms 49:20

[9] Ephesians 4:18

[10] 2 Samuel 7:2-5

[11] Compare Genesis 32:9-20. Nehemiah 2:4-20; 4:9

[12] Proverbs 28:26. Jeremiah 2:13; 9:23. Genesis 3:5-6. Isaiah 47:10-11

[13] Treatise on Temptation, Chap. 8. Compare Job, 18:7. Hosea. 10:8

[14] Compare Ezekiel 8:21-23. Nehemiah 1:11

[15] Genesis 12:7; 13:18

[16] Genesis 24:1-8. Compare also his servant, verse 12-27

[17] 1 Sam. 23:9-11; 30:6-8. 2 Sam. 2:1; 5:19. Compare the smarting rod from the neglect of this godly habit. 1 Sam. 27:1; with 1 Sam. 29

[18] Psalm 5:3; 143:8-10; 25:4-5

[19] Matt. 6:22. Compare Ps. 32:8; 34:5. Neh. 1:4-11; 2:4-8. Sir M. Hale left it on record, when nearly eighty years old, as his experience, that whenever he had committed his way simply and unreservedly to the Lord, he had always directed his path.

[20] Such as Exodus 13:21-22

[21] Psalms 107:43

[22] Compare Psalms 32:8-9. Isaiah 48:17-18; with Isaiah 30:21

[23] Isaiah 42:16; 50:10

[24] Psalms 107:7