Verse of the Day for August 3

Lean is a body word. You lean on a wall when your legs are tired, on a stick when the path is rough, on a friend at a funeral. Leaning is what you do with your weight.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. Solomon does not tell us to throw our understanding away. He tells us not to put our full weight on it. Think, plan, consider, but do not rest your whole self on the thinking.

That matters most when the way is quiet. When God seems to say nothing, our own understanding gets loud. It fills the silence with theories about what he must be doing and why he has not answered.

The promise that follows is not that he will explain. It is that he shall direct thy paths. Direction is something you often see only by looking back. A quiet road can still be a directed one.

If you are on a bus home tonight with no word about the job, the marriage, the move, practise leaning differently. Say to God what you know and what you do not. Then lay your weight on him, not on your guesses, and acknowledge him in the small ways you can still see.

Silence from heaven is not the same as absence from heaven.

Notice where you are resting your weight today, and shift it.