Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY
/
Who Are You Leaning On?
Who Are You Leaning On?
Jul 18, 2025 7:53 PM

  Who Are You Leaning On?

  By: Anne Peterson

  Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and do not lean on your own understanding.In all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make straight your paths.- Proverbs 3:5-6

  It was April 1972 when Bill Withers wrote the song, Lean on Me. A song many are familiar with. It addresses how we all have pain and sorrow in our lives. That we know there will be a tomorrow. And it invites the other person to lean on me. Assuring them we can be a friend, we can help them carry on, and that at one time or another we all need someone to lean on.

  I’ve always loved the song. And yet, I don’t think our spouses were made so that we fully lean on them. I think that’s God’s place.

  Are we to be there to help family and friends? Yes. Especially those who become our spouses. But if we lean on others instead of leaning on God, it isn’t fair to anyone.

  There are so many verses telling us to rely on God. Psalm 9:9, tells us that the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

  Psalm 18:2, tells us that the Lord is our rock and our fortress and deliverer. It goes on to say we take refuge in him, he is a shield. You can practically feel God’s power as you read that verse.

  Psalm 55:22, tells us that God will sustain us if we cast our burden on him.

  When I find myself in the card aisle trying to choose a birthday or Christmas card for my husband, it’s sometimes frustrating. I don’t always find cards that say what I want to say. The picture they paint is that of a person who is everything to us. One we can’t live without. And that’s not true.

  I love my husband. I really do, but it’s God we can’t live without. And to put that on another person is unfair.

  I have a confession to make. I used to be codependent on my husband. Which simply means if Mike wasn’t happy I thought I couldn't be happy. My feelings were dependent on his. But with counseling and a lot of reading I came to understand God wants me to depend on him. He’s the one I’m to rely on.

  If I was to depend on Mike instead of depending on God, that is too much responsibility on him. And when things don’t work out, I’d be constantly disappointed in him. But by learning to rely on God, I’m doing what God instructs me to do. To trust him, the almighty God, the everlasting Father. The one who can do what’s impossible for man to do. I’m learning to trust the one who loves me so much he sacrificed his precious Son for me.

  I’m trusting the one who started a work in me, as it says in Philippians 1:6, and who will one day complete it. The one who will never give up on me.

  I’m trusting in the one who knows me better than I know myself. The one whose thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and whose ways are higher than my ways, Isaiah 55:8-9.

  And the exciting thing about relying on God is that it frees up our spouses to be who they were meant to be. Someone to come alongside, to love and support. God is to be the center of our relationship, the core.

  And as each of us grow closer to God, we’ll find we grow closer to one another.

  I know God wanted Mike and I to be together. I prayed and committed our relationship to God, and asked him to guide and direct us. Have we struggled? Yes. But God was there for each bump in the road. And God has been open to each and every prayer, even those we never verbalized.

  Sometimes we get Proverbs 3:5-6 mixed up. Instead of leaning on God, we trust in ourselves and lean on our own understanding. But God reminds us he is the one available 24/7. And like Peter who walked on water till he took his eyes off the Master, when Peter did fall, all he had to do was call on the Lord. Matthew 14:31, tells us immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. Immediately. All because of love. Oh how he loves you and me.

  Anne Peterson and her husband, Michael have been married for 43 years. Anne is a poet, speaker, published author of 16 books, including her latest book, Always There:Finding God's Comfort Through Loss. Anne has also written and published another memoir, Broken: A story of abuse, survival, and hope. Sign up for anne’s newsletter at www.annepeterson.com and receive a free eBook by clicking the tab. Or connect with her on Facebook.

  Related Resource: 4 Truths About Marriage Every Couple Needs to RememberNo matter how long you’ve been married, reminding yourself of fundamental marriage truths is helpful. In this episode of the Team Us Podcast, Ted and Ashleigh share four truths about marriage every couple needs to remember. If you like what you hear, head over toApple or Spotify and subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode!

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY
Acton Briefs: Summer 2018
A collection of short essays by Acton writers, click a link to jump to that article: AU and building the free society by Jenna Suchyta Westminster Abbey praises God for the NHS by Noah Gould President Trump nominates Judge Brett Kavanaugh by Joe Carter AU and building the free society Jenna Suchyta, Acton Institute Intern Over 1,000 people flocked to Grand Rapids June 18-21 to listen to more than 80 inspiring faculty members lecture on a wide variety of...
The return of nature worship
We live in decadent times. Universal human rights have not been fully attained, yet radical environmentalists insist that flora, fauna and even geological features and structures should be deemed legal persons, a meme known as “nature rights.” The drive to grant rights to the entirety of the natural world has already achieved stunning victories. In 2008, Ecuador granted human-type rights to “nature” in its constitution back, while Bolivia recently passed a law to the same effect. More than 30...
Editor's Note: Summer 2018
In early July, an Indian court issued a ruling that accorded the status of “legal person or entity” to animals in the state, saying “they have a distinct persona with corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person.” With this measure, designed to prevent cruelty to animals, justices of the Uttarakhand High Court in northern India declared that “the entire animal kingdom, including avian and aquatic ones, are declared as legal entities having a distinct persona with corresponding...
Arvo Pärt and the universal soul of music
Sacred music is not only a devotional posed and performed to honor our Creator but also a bulwark against human sinfulness and frailties. Composer Arvo Pärt has been creating music of faith that inspires while at the same time subverts several of the most oppressive systems of government of the past century. poser’s lifelong development as a poser also led him to a deeper faith. He converted to Orthodox Christianity in 1972. Theologian Peter Bouteneff observed that Pärt is...
The politics of apocalypse
Disarmageddon” is what The Economist earlier this year called placent, reckless leaders” who “have forgotten how valuable it is to restrain nuclear weapons.” The politics of nuclear weapons – deterrence doctrines, mutually assured destruction and so on – have been the obsessive stuff of international politics since the Manhattan Project. There is, as Alissa Wilkinson and I argue in our 2015 book How to Survive the Apocalypse, something unique about the nuclear age, in which it es terrifyingly clear...
Nature, technology, and Pompeii
The primary mission of the Acton Institute since its inception has been identifying and revealing both traditional and innovative tonics to ward off Lord Acton’s dictum: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In fact, the manner in which we wield our power over one another, our environment and God’s other creatures defines our humanity, or, in other words, who we are as individuals and social creatures. bined tradition teaches us that humanity was not created by...
Labor unions, yesterday and today
Along-cherished predisposition on the part of the Roman Catholic Church is that labor unions act as a protection against the exploitation of workers. From Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum forward, the Church has been an outspoken proponent of organized labor, worker safety and human dignity. Thus, es as little surprise that the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops weighed-in when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in February regarding the Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and...
Power, people and things in 'Westworld'
Since I was a child I’ve always loved a good story. I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves, to fix what was broken in us, and to help us e the people we dreamed of being.” So begins Anthony Hopkin’s character, Robert Ford, in his speech marking the finale of the first season of HBO’s mind-bending, techno-philosophical series “Westworld.” Ford is the brilliant co-creator of Westworld, a theme park set several decades in the future in which...
Sister Mary Kenneth Keller
For the first time, we can now mechanically simulate the cognitive process. –Sister Mary Kenneth Keller Sister Mary Kenneth Keller established herself as a strong influence in the world puter science at a time when women in the field were unheard of. At the same time, her work paved the way for what we now understand as the information economy – a key driver of wealth creation. She was the first woman in the United States to earn a...
Editor's Note: Fall 2018
When I accepted the new position as managing editor of Religion & Liberty, only one thing had been set in stone: Caroline Roberts’ article on Walker Percy would be the cover story. Everything else remained to be determined. Her essay is one of the first e from Acton’s new longform journalism platform, bines extensive reporting with beautiful photography to give readers an immersive understanding of the subject. This project continues to grow and improve. Curt Biren analyzes economic and...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved