Proverbs 3:5-6 Sunday School Lesson Outline
Today’s verses are pretty well-known but they are good ones.
Turn to Proverbs 3:5-6:
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to Him,
and He will make your paths straight. NIV
We are to trust in the Lord with all our hearts.
What does that mean?
It means completely, in every way, in every situation, with everything we care about
Our kids, our fears, wants, dreams, health, decisions, actions
ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!
There is nothing in our lives or hearts that we are not supposed to trust Jesus with.
What does it mean to lean not on your own understanding?
It means to put aside how you understand things.
It means to realize that you don’t have it all figured out, but God does.
It’s being wise enough to know that when we trust God we don’t have to even try to understand everything.
It is choosing to lean on His understanding of things instead of ours.
We only have to obey Him and trust He will work it and handle it, no matter what our “it” is.
Trusting the Lord with our whole heart is not easy.
We have fears and doubts.
Things we’re not sure about.
BUT – we have to make the decision in each situation to trust Him, to obey Him and do it His way, and to believe that the Lord has our best interests at heart and will work in the best interests of us and whatever our “it” is.
Whether it’s someone else we’re praying for, something we want to happen, a situation that needs handled, or our own issues we’re dealing with.
Whatever’s going on – we have to make the decision to trust Him and His way instead of relying on our own intellect, thoughts, or beliefs.
In other words, our own understanding.
Look at verse 6.
We have to submit to Him in everything.
According to Google Dictionary:
Submit – accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person.
In other words, we set aside how we want to do it, and yield to the Lord’s way and authority.
We allow the Lord to be the authority on it and we defer to His will.
Not just the easy stuff.
Not just the stuff we agree with.
All of it.
No taking shortcuts.
No taking the easy way out because we are tired or don’t feel like doing it.
No “just this one time” I’ll do it this way.”
All of it.
His way.
Every single time.
Look what happens when we do that, though.
He makes our paths straight.
Having a straight path means our way, our lives, our present and future.
Straight means smooth, harmonious, free from obstacles, successful.
A couple of thoughts about straight paths.
First, when we do it His way, we don’t throw stumbling blocks in front of ourselves.
Sometimes when we do it our way we create more problems than we solve.
We get in the Lord’s way and delay His ability to handle things.
Because really, sometimes the struggles in this life are self-inflicted.
If we would do what we are supposed to, like praying before acting, obeying when we’re tired and don’t really want to, then we wouldn’t have some of the problems we do have.
When we try to do it ourselves, our way, in our understanding, we can sometimes hinder God from working – we get in His way and disrupt the flow of things.
In essence, we’re making our own path crooked.
When we submit to the Lord and obey Him, He opens doors for us.
He gives us opportunities we might not otherwise have.
He also makes our life go smoother and work itself out.
This doesn’t mean there won’t be any strife or trouble.
It does mean there will be less and that He will be free to work on them without us getting in the way.
Look what happened when a bunch of fisherman submitted to Jesus even though He seemed to make no sense.
Turn to Luke 5:1
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then He sat down and taught the people from the boat.
4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
Here we see that Simon Peter and his associates were washing and stowing their fishing nets.
They’d been out all night working and hadn’t caught anything.
They were exhausted.
They were probably hungry
Jesus told them to go back out.
Simon Peter had a lot of doubt about that and told Him so.
But Jesus told him to do it anyway.
Instead of using their own thoughts and judgement and going ahead and
finishing folding the nets and trying again tomorrow, they submitted to Jesus and went back out on the lake.
They tried fishing again, even though they knew it was pointless because they’d been fishing all night with no luck.
Look what happened next.
Because they submitted to Jesus and trusted Him, they caught so many fish their net almost broke from the weight of them!
They ended up having to call their buddies over to help them.
There was so much fish it nearly sunk both boats!
What would have happened if instead of submitting to Jesus and trusting Him, they had relied on their own understanding of the situation?
What if they had told Jesus no, explained to Him why it was pointless, told Him how they’d already spent a lot of time washing nets, that they were tired, hungry and ready to go home?
What kind of blessing would they have missed?
What kind of good results would they have cheated themselves, and others, out of?
Seeing those overfilled boats caused Peter to fall at Jesus’ feet and start a relationship with Him. (verse 8)
At this moment Jesus invited them to be fishers of men.
Simon Peter, his brother Andrew, and their friends James and John, who were brothers and sons of Zebedee, all started following Jesus that day.
How did that change not just their lives, but the lives of those around them?
How does our trusting the Lord and leaning on His understanding instead of ours, change not just our lives, but the lives of others around us, too?
By the way:
Those overfilled nets are a good reminder of Ephesians 3:20-21:
20 Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
21 Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. KJV
Those overfilled nets were a reminder that He can do much more than we imagine and that He wants to do that for us.
not just with fish, but with understanding and wisdom, too.
Leaning on God’s understanding instead of our own is the best way to live our lives.
When we rely on His understanding instead of our own, submit ourselves to Him, and trust that He has what’s best for us, we can rest in our faith, assured that He will lead us in the way that is best for us.
Every time.
He’s that good of a God!
This week’s homework –
Read over Luke 5:1-11.
Spend time in prayer talking to the Lord and thinking about how learning to trust God more and to lean more on His understanding instead of your own can change things in your life, not just for you but for those around you – your family, friends, complete strangers.
Ask Him to show you ways you can better trust Him and lean on His understanding.
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