Lean Not Unto Thine Own Understanding

Sister Bonnie Cordon gave a talk last year in which she referenced this famous verse of scripture from Proverbs: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).  This is a scripture that I have had memorized since the days of Seminary and thought on often, but I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought about the use of the word lean here.  Sister Cordon commented, “In English the word lean has a connotation of physically listing or moving to one side. When we physically lean toward one side or another, we move off center, we are out of balance, and we tip. When we spiritually lean to our own understanding, we lean away from our Savior. If we lean, we are not centered; we are not balanced; we are not focused on Christ.”  I really like that imagery.  Instead of leaning towards our own wisdom and being out of balance, we need to stand straight and be firm in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In other words, we “stand in holy places” and are “not moved” to lean on our own wisdom or the world’s teachings (Doctrine and Covenants 45:32).  As we trust in the Lord with all our heart, we can “stand up” with perfect balance before the Lord and “awake” as Isaiah exhorts us to (Isaiah 51:17).

               Thus one way that we “lean not unto our own understanding” is that we stand up straight in righteousness before the Lord.  Perhaps there is another way as well that we might think about how to follow this counsel.  Elder Holland gave a talk at BYU-I a few years back in which he counseled the new university president to “lean into the wind.”  He encouraged, “President Gilbert, winds will blow during your administration. Welcome them, face them, and lean into them. They will be carrying opportunities to you with every gust….  On a tough day, remember that the Jaredites in the Book of Mormon endured furious winds that tossed their new barges about, but those were winds which came forth ‘out of my mouth’ said the Lord, and they blew toward the promised land. When winds blow, President Gilbert, welcome them as coming from the mouth of the Lord.  Lean into them and seize the opportunities there. They, too, will lead to the promised land.”  Here the counsel was not to lean into our own understanding and our own selves, but rather to lean into the winds that seem to be blowing us back.  Put another way, instead of turning backwards into ourselves when the winds blow towards us, we can lean forward to face our challenges head on with, as the proverb says, trust in the Lord.  Sometimes in periods of seeming peace and prosperity we may feel that the winds blow from behind and encourage us forward, but those aren’t the winds that build our strength.  Other times the winds blow directly into us in our face, seemingly slowing our progression.  But that’s when opportunities for real growth come.  When these winds of challenges and trials flow, the path of least resistance is to lean backwards or stop moving forward altogether, avoiding the winds that push us back.  And when we are in the midst of the “fierceness of the wind” we may not feel like leaning into the wind, but it may be the very path forward that the Lord has orchestrated for us so that we can be led to our promised land (Ether 6:6).  Life will frequently tempt us to take the easy road, the quick solution, the free lunch, the pain-free shortcut; but most often the path we should take is the harder one, the one that builds character, the one that stretches and refines us.  The path we need to take is the one forward directly into the wind—and so, trusting in the Lord, that’s the direction we must lean.  To use another Book of Mormon example, at life’s pivotal moments when we can run for safety or turn into the wind to risk our lives facing our foes, and our captain calls out, “Therefore what say ye, my sons, will ye go against them to battle?”, we can answer with the sons of Helaman, “Behold, our God is with us…  let us go forth” (Alma 56:44, 46).