Leaning To Our Own Understanding
All people will have different contexts, ideas, culture, choices, location, and people that we surround ourselves with. Though one thing I know for sure is that God always has His eyes upon us, for He is responsible for His body and our choices not only affect us, but also Him.
As I was listening to a book, it mentioned something about perception or frames of reference. The thought of it is that depending on the context and frame of who we are speaking with, the way we understand something may differ completely and may affect us emotionally in different ways. Which reminded me how people responded when Jesus said “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” on John 2:19.
It would be very easy to respond the same way people thought during that time if you didn’t know Jesus. The frame in which they thought was coming from pride, history, and not knowing enough of scripture or scripture without enough context. If they knew God, that quote wouldn’t have been taken against Jesus. Jesus knew about the breadth of God, and He saw how far from the previous glory and what the temple has become.
Coming back to frames, one thing that I realized is that the Bible should always be read with God as our frame. Admittedly when I was younger, I didn’t know any better nor did I think of God as how I know Him now. Knowing and learning about God takes time, effort, and context in order to bring Him to the front of the frame. Having Him in front of the frame allows us to understand Jesus and God better, and if we declare that we love Him then we definitely need to put in the effort to experience Him fully; In this way, we could be fully embracing His kingdom here as it is in heaven.
From that context, Proverbs 3:5 repoints us not to lean onto our own understanding, as we will always have a certain frame of God. We then ask, how do we not lean onto our own understanding? Since we kind of box God into our own thoughts or perception, when in fact God’s perception sees more, knows more, and could do more than what we could do in our lifetime? Upon realizing this, wouldn’t you want to work towards a world using God’s frame? To see ourselves as part of His world and His frame?
No real conclusion for this interpretation, but I would like to point out that life is much more than we ever thought, and trying to work towards a frame or a lens without God is just wrong. For everything that He does, He does it with purpose. His frame is truth, a truth that we couldn’t live without.