The young man at the altar knew four things.
He knew he wanted her. He knew he meant it. He knew there would be difficulties in the general way that people know there will be weather. And he knew the words, because somebody had printed them for him.
You know about eleven thousand things. About her, about yourself, about what a hard year does to two people, about what happens in a house when a parent dies, about the specific way you both go quiet.
And when you think about saying it again, all of that arrives at once, and the sheer volume of it stops the sentence before it starts.
Before we go on, something that stands at the top of this page and is never softened: if you cannot say it today, you are not failing at anything. Nothing here is asking you for something you do not have. Some people arrive on a day when the sentence will not come and that is a real day and it is not a verdict on anybody.
For everybody else, let me show you where all that knowledge is supposed to go, because it is not an obstacle.
Lean not unto thine own understanding
There is a line in Proverbs that people usually read as an instruction to stop thinking, and it is not one.
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding (Proverbs 3:5, King James Version)
Lean not. That is a word about weight, not about knowledge. It does not say do not have an understanding. It says do not put the whole load on it.
The verse assumes you have one. A man with no understanding could not be told not to lean on it. The instruction only makes sense to somebody carrying a great deal of it, which is exactly where you are.
You are being addressed as somebody with an understanding rather than as somebody who should not have one, and Proverbs has never once asked a man to know less. Proverbs 3:5 tells a person where to put the weight rather than what to delete, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a relief to a man with twenty years of information.
That is what unsticks the sentence. You have been trying to say it again with all eleven thousand things bearing the load, and no sentence can carry that.
You have been leaning on the wrong thing rather than knowing too much, and no verse has ever once made knowledge a disqualification. The passage moves the weight to the LORD and leaves the understanding in place, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a load off a sentence that was never built to carry it.
The knowledge goes inside the promise
Now the useful part, because that verse does not tell you to discard anything and neither will I.
Every one of those eleven thousand things belongs inside the promise rather than in front of it. The young man promised in ignorance and it counted. You would promise in knowledge and it counts more.
Think about what that actually means. He said he would stay without knowing what staying would ask. You would say it having been asked and having answered, several times, over twenty years.
That is a heavier promise from a better informed man, and there is no version of the accounting where that is worth less.
You are able to put the whole of what you know inside the sentence, and the knowledge has never once needed to be set aside first. Proverbs 3:5 leaves the understanding intact and redirects the trust, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man bring everything he has learned into a promise rather than around it.
You made a vow twenty years ago and you have kept it through most of what you now know, and saying it again has never once required you to become simple. It is written that we trust with the heart and do not lean on our own understanding, and the Spirit of God is the one who holds both a man's knowledge and his promise in the same sentence.
One sentence, with today in it
Here is the assignment and it is genuinely one sentence.
Say one sentence of it again, out loud, to God, with today's knowledge in it.
The knowledge goes in the sentence. That is the instruction. Not left outside the door and not the whole eleven thousand things, one true piece of it.
It is written that we trust with the heart and do not lean on our own understanding, and the Spirit of God is the one who moves the weight without removing the knowing. You are carrying everything you learned into the promise, and none of it has ever once been in the way.
Something like: I said I would be here, and I know now what four hard years look like, and I say it again this morning.
Out loud, alone, to God. Not to her. Not as an event. Nobody needs to know it happened.
You are able to say it with the weight of what you know inside it, and it has never once been necessary to unlearn anything first. Proverbs 3:5 moves the leaning without removing the understanding, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a man says a fully informed sentence out loud.
Here is what I believe is going out over somebody this evening.
You are not disqualified by knowing too much, and two years of not getting past three words has never once been doubt in you. Proverbs 3:5 says lean not unto thine own understanding, and it is the Holy Spirit, not my telling you, who moves a weight off a sentence rather than knowledge out of a man.
And this, which is what I came with.
You are able to make a heavier and better informed promise than the boy did, and none of what you know has ever once been in the way. The word keeps the understanding and redirects the leaning, and the same Spirit who moved Proverbs is standing in your kitchen this evening.
One sentence. One true piece of what you know.
Declare this over yourself
- Twenty years of information, you were never a disqualification. Proverbs 3:5 says lean not unto thine own understanding, so by the Holy Spirit I put the weight where it belongs and say the sentence today, in the name of Jesus.
- Volume that arrives every time I open my mouth, you are not required in one line. The word redirects the leaning and leaves the understanding entirely intact, and by the Spirit of God I am done trying to fit an account into a sentence.
- Father, You told a man where to put the weight and never once told him to know less. Your word says trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding, so by Your Spirit I say one sentence of it again today, with what I know inside it.
Proverbs 3:5
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