“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” — Proverbs 3:5
“You’ll have to learn to LEAN, if you’re going to stay in this country,” Paul Lindell remarked to me on our second day in Mexico. He was pointing to a group of Mexicans in various attitudes, some standing, some sitting, some reclining, but all leaning against a wall or some other solid object.
On another corner we saw a man draped over a hitching post, snoring away to his heart’s content. If the post had given way, it would have been just too bad for him.
A little farther on a big white dog was sitting, all relaxed, on his haunches. And believe it or not – he, too, was leaning against a brick wall!
LEAN – that’s what I’m beginning to do, and God has a word for me: “Lean not on your own understanding.” All right, I’ll quit that. I’ve done plenty of it, even while serving the Lord.
Attendance prizes for children in Sunday school, and all kinds of devices to hold interest are fine, but I’m afraid I have leaned on them instead of trusting the Spirit to do the work.
In the matter of language my own understanding is nothing to lean on at present. When we came into our street in Rosario the first time, Ruth [Temple] asked me, “What street is this?” I looked up at a sign and said, “Headache.” It was a medicine ad, not a street sign! I’ll never hear the end of that.
There is another way I’ve been tempted to lean on my own understanding. When I came here I started trying to figure out where my support was going to come from. But the Lord checked me on it. “Leave that to me,” he said. And now he has brought in gifts from places I never would have thought of, to show me that I can trust him in that, too.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” That’s the way to lean. Eleanor [Schulz] went out to La Rastra on Monday to hold meetings in the mountains. That same day Dr. Pedro Berber of Rosario was murdered on that same road. I haven’t heard the details, but will learn them from Eleanor when she comes home today. Do you suppose she will say, “I’m not going up to the ranches anymore. It’s too dangerous”? Oh, no! Not Eleanor! She will be full of plans for her next trip. She has learned to LEAN…