Leaning, Not Falling: Navigating Advice and Divine Understanding

For the past year, Proverbs 3:5 has been thrown at me whenever I disagree with advice. It usually happens when well-meaning people believe they are speaking on God's behalf.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5, NASB)

The problem is, when I disagree with them, I don't believe I am "leaning" on my own understanding. I am simply trying to weigh what I see and hear against Scripture and reality, separating truth from what I want to be true.

Of course, I am not perfect at this. But just because someone claims God revealed something doesn't mean He did. Scripture provides checks and balances. While God often uses other believers to speak into our lives, I personally require internal resonance—a validation that the message is truly from God and not just a breach of my boundaries. I cannot count the number of times I have acted against my conscience and regretted the consequences.

So, how do we deal with this tension? What do you do when someone you love claims to have a word from God for your life, but your spirit does not resonate with it? Or worse, when it contradicts what you know God told you?

It gets complicated. But if you live long enough, you will experience it.

A Deeper Look at "Leaning"

To find concrete standing, I went back to the original Hebrew text.

The phrase "your own understanding" comes from the word binatecha (root: binah). This word implies mental discernment—the ability to separate and judge reality intellectually. It is our human capacity to analyze.

Interestingly, the word translated as "lean" is tishsha'en, which means to support oneself or to rest one's full weight upon something. The writer of Proverbs is warning us not to prop ourselves up entirely on our own mental perceptions. However, he is not telling us to blindly prop ourselves up on the perceptions of others.

The command is to lean on Yahweh.

The Test of Faith

How do you know when your understanding is aligned with God? From my perspective, if God wants me to follow a specific path, He will make it plain. If I have hesitation, I believe the correct action is to wait.

Paul addresses this tension between personal conviction and external pressure in Romans 14:22-23:

“The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God... whatever is not from faith is sin.”

Paul was discussing disputable matters—like eating meat sacrificed to idols—but the principle applies here: You must have your own conviction before God.

I was raised seeing this principle in action. My paternal grandmother was a Seventh-Day Adventist who believed that not going to church on Saturday was a sin. My parents, however, attended church on Sunday. Whenever she visited, my parents didn't force their view on her, nor did they violate their own conscience. They went to church with her on Saturday out of love, and then attended our home church on Sunday out of their own conviction.

There are so many examples like this. The key is making sure you do what God told you to do, even if it isn't what other people are telling you. What God tells you will never contradict Scripture, and it will eventually resonate with the faith He has given you.