“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; don’t rely on your own intelligence. Know him in all your paths, and he will keep your ways straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6 CEB)

My mother has always projected strength. So I was a little rattled by her demeanor. My little brother, who was 2 or 3 years old at the time (I was 5 or 6), had been experiencing chronic feverish hives that covered his body and my mom was visibly disheartened as she explained, “the doctors don’t know why this is happening. They don’t know how to help him.”

Without hesitation, and with absolutely no reason to feel otherwise, I blurted out, “Jesus knows how to help.”

Now my mom is a very intelligent woman. Later on in her story she would acquire a Master’s degree and become CEO of a large non-profit organization. In the back of her mind she must have been thinking, Jesus isn’t a magic genie who solves every complex medical condition upon request, but I didn’t see so much as a hint of doubt on her face when she began to pray that night.

In the morning my brother woke up fully healed. The hives never came back.

“Then Peter got out of the boat and was walking on the water toward Jesus. But when Peter saw the strong wind, he became frightened. As he began to sink, he shouted, ‘Lord, rescue me!’ Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him, saying, ‘You man of weak faith! Why did you begin to have doubts?” (Mt 14:29-31)

Peter started having doubts because, when he looked around, he realized what he was doing didn’t make any sense, at least it didn’t make any sense based on our level of understanding.

The universe is filled with mysteries that science hasn’t solved. The most brilliant among us have yet to explain why large masses and subatomic particles follow different sets of rules or what accounts for 85 percent of the gravity in the cosmos. So while there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using our God-given intelligence, it’s important to remember that the vast majority of existence is beyond our current capacity to understand.

Wisdom, then, is depending less on our ability to figure things out, and more on God’s ability to work things out for us.

Dear God, thank you for loving us even when we’re prideful and doubtful. Help us to trust in you and allow you to guide our steps. Amen.