The phrase ‘don’t lean on your own understanding’ comes from Proverbs 3:5: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. It can sound like a call to switch off your brain, to stop thinking and just believe. But that’s not what it means at all.

The Book of Proverbs is full of encouragement to seek wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Thinking clearly and growing in insight is part of what it means to live well. So, it’s not about rejecting reason or intellect, far from it.

What this verse is saying is something deeper. It’s about posture, not intelligence. ‘Leaning’ on your own understanding means depending solely on your own perspective, as if your view of the world is always right, complete, or enough. And that’s a risky way to live.

There’s nothing wrong with understanding, the problem is when we trust it more than we trust God. Human insight, however sharp, is still limited. We see through a glass darkly. We can’t always spot the traps ahead or understand the full weight of what’s going on in someone else’s heart. We misread situations, judge too quickly, or let ego and fear shape our choices.

God invites us to trust him with all our heart, not because thinking is bad, but because he sees the whole picture and we don’t. We’re not called to switch off our minds, but to hold our conclusions lightly, with humility and openness to his guidance.

In a world that prizes independence and self-sufficiency, this kind of trust might feel countercultural, but it’s also freeing. We don’t need to have it all figured out. We can use our brains and lean on grace, and in that space, that tension between thought and trust, we often find the wisdom we really need.