We live in an age that is quietly intoxicated with intelligence.
Not wisdom—intelligence.
We live with the assumption, often unspoken but deeply embedded, that if a problem can be solved, it will be solved by someone smarter than us… or by a system smarter than them. We trust models. We trust data. We trust expertise. We trust the accumulation of knowledge the way earlier generations trusted providence.
We are the most informed generation in human history.
We carry more information in our pockets than entire civilizations once possessed.
We can ask a question and receive an answer in milliseconds.
We can simulate futures, predict behaviors, optimize outcomes.
And now, with artificial intelligence accelerating beyond anything we imagined, we are beginning to push even further—beyond the limits of the human mind itself.
And yet, something feels wrong. Because for all our knowledge, we are not calmer. For all our expertise, we are not more humane. For all our systems, we are not more secure.
If intelligence were enough, we should be at peace by now. But instead, we live in a strange contradiction: A world of expanding knowledge and shrinking meaning. A world of unprecedented capability and deepening anxiety.
The Age of Reason promised clarity. What we are experiencing instead feels like regression—not into ignorance, but into cynicism. A quiet, pervasive sense that despite all our advances, we may be doomed anyway. That the problems are too big. The systems too complex. The damage irreversible.
We are no longer asking, “What is true?”
We are asking, “What’s the point?”
When reason loses confidence, it doesn’t collapse into humility.
It collapses into exhaustion.
Many of us didn’t abandon faith because we became rebellious. We didn’t stop trusting God because we were angry. We stopped because we became competent. We learned how to manage. How to analyze. How to plan. How to protect ourselves.
Somewhere along the way, without ever deciding to, we began leaning our full weight on our own understanding.
Tonight, I want to explore a simple but unsettling question—one I don’t want you to answer too quickly:
Why hasn’t being smart solved more than this?
Not just in the world. In us.
Why do people who have done the math… made the careful choices… followed the responsible path…
still feel unsteady inside?
The Bible has a name for this problem. It uses an image we rarely think about. It calls it leaning. It warns us—not that understanding is bad—but that it was never meant to carry the weight of a life.
--- PART ONE — The Honest Problem (Recognition)
We need to start by naming something honestly, without shame and without exaggeration.
We live in a time when being smart has become a form of safety. Not wisdom. Not humility. Intelligence.
We have been trained—explicitly and implicitly—to believe that if we gather enough information, ask the right questions, consult the right experts, and think carefully enough, we can reduce life to something manageable. Predictable. Containable.
We know more than any generation before us.
We diagnose disease earlier.
We prevent disasters more effectively.
We solve problems faster.
There is real good here. This sermon is not an attack on intelligence. Intelligence is a gift. Scripture celebrates understanding.
The book of Proverbs is filled with it. But something subtle has happened alongside this progress. We have begun to lean on intelligence in places where it was never meant to support weight.
We use it not just to navigate the world, but to justify ourselves within it. Not just to solve problems, but to calm our fears.
Not just to plan wisely, but to assure ourselves that everything will be okay. That’s where the trouble begins.
Intelligence is very good at answering how questions. But it is almost helpless with why questions.
It can tell you how a system works. It cannot tell you why a life feels empty inside a functioning system.
It can explain patterns. It cannot confer meaning.
It can optimize outcomes. It cannot promise peace.
Many people today are not confused because they lack answers. They are confused because they have too many answers and no resting place.
We are surrounded by explanation but starved for orientation. And the result is not rebellion. It is exhaustion.
This is why so many thoughtful people feel quietly unsteady. They’ve done what they were taught to do. They’ve thought carefully. They’ve avoided recklessness. They’ve been responsible. And yet, beneath the surface, something feels fragile.
It’s not that their thinking is wrong. It’s that their thinking is being asked to do too much.
We’ve made intelligence load-bearing. We’ve leaned our full weight on our ability to understand the world, predict outcomes, and protect ourselves from uncertainty. And when uncertainty inevitably breaks through—as it always does—we feel shaken in a way that surprises us.
This is why anxiety is so common among the informed. Why despair shows up among the capable. Why cynicism feels reasonable to people who can see all the variables but trust none of them.
The problem is not that intelligence has failed us. The problem is that we asked it to be God. Intelligence makes a terrible god. It cannot promise presence. It cannot absorb fear. It cannot carry grief. It cannot tell you who you are when the plan collapses.
When you lean on it for those things, it doesn’t break loudly.
It splinters quietly. And that quiet cracking is what many people are living with right now.
--- PART TWO — When Certainty Fails (Identification)
This isn’t just a cultural problem.
It’s personal. Most of us encounter this truth not in theory, but in the wreckage of something we were sure about.
Think about a time when you felt prepared. You had reasons. You had research. You had counsel. You had logic.
Maybe it was a decision about work. You weighed the options. You ran the numbers. You chose what made sense.
Maybe it was parenting. You read the books. You followed the guidance. You did what was responsible and informed.
Maybe it was a relationship, a move, an investment, a ministry decision. You weren’t reckless. You weren’t impulsive. You were thoughtful.
Then reality didn’t cooperate. The plan didn’t hold. The outcome didn’t match the logic. The certainty evaporated.
What hurt most wasn’t just the loss. It was the confusion.
Because you find yourself thinking, “But I was careful.”
“I had good reasons.”
“I did the math.”
That moment exposes something unsettling.
The most disturbing realization for a thoughtful person is not that they were foolish.
It’s that they were right — and still wrong.
Your logic was sound.
Your reasoning was coherent.
Your decision-making process was defensible.
And it still didn’t save you.
That’s when the ground starts to tilt. Because we’ve been taught—quietly but consistently—that intelligence equals safety. That if we think well enough, we’ll be protected. That good reasoning leads to good outcomes.
Life refuses to honor that contract. When it breaks, we don’t just lose confidence in the decision.
We lose confidence in ourselves.
You begin to mistrust your own mind. You feel betrayed by your own discernment.
This is where anxiety is born—not from ignorance, but from awareness. Because once you realize that your understanding is not a guarantee of security, you’re left exposed. You see how many variables exist that you cannot control, predict, or account for.
And here’s the critical insight:
Feeling certain is not the same as seeing clearly.
Our minds are excellent at building convincing cases. We can argue ourselves into confidence. We can explain away warning signs. We can justify decisions that feel necessary.
But conviction is not vision.
Intelligence works like a flashlight. It illuminates what you aim it at. But it does not show you what lies just outside the beam. It cannot reveal the cliff five steps to the left.
When you realize this, a kind of vertigo sets in. You see that you’ve been navigating a vast, unpredictable world using a map you drew yourself. A map based on past experience, partial knowledge, and reasonable assumptions.
Suddenly, that map feels very small. This is not a failure of thinking. It’s the discovery of limits. And limits are terrifying to people who have relied on their minds to keep them safe.
So we compensate.
We gather more information.
We refine the plan.
We seek more certainty.
But the deeper problem remains untouched. Because the issue isn’t that we don’t understand enough. It’s that we’ve trusted our understanding with weight it was never meant to bear.
--- PART THREE — Scripture Names the Problem (Confirmation)
This sense of vertigo — this realization that our understanding is not a safe place to stand — is not new.
Scripture has been naming it for thousands of years.
It does so with remarkable restraint. Proverbs 3:5 says:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”
We hear that verse so often that we miss how radical it is. It is not a rebuke. It is not a scolding. It is not anti-intellectual.
The Bible does not condemn understanding. It assumes you have one. The issue is not having understanding.
The issue is leaning on it. The Hebrew word translated “lean” carries the sense of placing your full weight on something — like a person resting their entire body on a staff. If the staff holds, you’re safe. If it snaps, you fall.
The text is quietly asking a structural question: What are you resting your weight on?
This is where the image matters.
In architecture, not every wall does the same job. Some walls are designed to shape space. They provide separation, beauty, and orientation. They help you move through the house.
Some walls carry the weight of the roof. Those are load-bearing walls. They are not optional.
They are not decorative. They are structural.
Your understanding is a wall — but it is not a load-bearing one.
It is meant to help you see.
It is meant to help you discern.
It is meant to help you make wise choices.
But it was never meant to carry the full weight of your existence.
When Proverbs says “lean not,” it is not telling you to abandon reason.
It is warning you not to ask reason to do the work of trust.
When you lean your full weight on your understanding, you are asking something finite to behave as if it were infinite.
That always leads to collapse. Not dramatic collapse. Quiet collapse. The kind that shows up as constant vigilance. Low-grade anxiety. A sense that you can never quite rest.
You may still believe in God.
You may still pray.
You may still affirm the right doctrines.
But you are no longer leaning.
You are standing — alert, competent, braced.
And Scripture is saying, gently but firmly:
That posture will not hold you.
This is not because God is offended by your intelligence.
It’s because He knows its limits.
Understanding is a gift.
But it is a terrible foundation.
When you place the weight of meaning, safety, identity, and future on your own discernment, you are building on something that was never designed to support it.
And sooner or later, you will hear the cracking.
