Proverbs 3:5-6. I would venture to say these two verses rank up there in the top 100 verses to memorize. It was number 87 on one list I looked at. I am pretty sure I memorized it in kindergarten. I made my kindergarten-aged daughter memorize it three months ago. I cannot remember when I did it with the boys, but it was probably around that same time frame.
That means I've known these two verses for approximately 37 years. Enough time for them to be more than familiar. Enough time for me to take them for granted. When my Bible study asked me to write down observations and applications from these verses, I groaned. What new thing could I pull out of this that I did not already know?
I set out to define each word in the verse, using both an English dictionary and the definitions from Strong's concordance provided by the Hebrew Interlinear Bible (which sounds like I did something incredibly cool, but it's all online). I skipped the prepositions, conjunctions, and article adjectives, although as a teacher of writing at our homeschool co-op, I should have emphasized those as well.
Here are the verses in the 1984 NIV to start with: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."
Trust: Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, and surety of God. Maintaining confident expectation. To be bold and secure.
LORD: Yahweh. I Am. The One who was, is, and always will be. He who is with us.
All: The whole of. Everything. The totality.
Heart: The seat of your appetites, emotions, passions, and intellect.
Lean: Incline in feeling, opinion, or action. Depend on. Rely.
Understanding: Your mental processes for comprehension and interpretation. Your intelligence and powers of discernment.
Ways: Your manner, mode, fashion of doing things. Your actions and conduct. Your plans or means of obtaining a goal.
Acknowledge: Admit to be real and true. To show and express appreciation of. Notice. To know, perceive, consider, recognize.
Path: A narrow walk or way. The route, course, or track along which something moves. A course of action or conduct. Your way of living.
Straight: Without a bend, angle, or curve. Direct. Evenly formed or set. Honest, honorable, upright. Continuous, direct, fixed.
Putting this all together, it looks something like this:
Maintain a bold, secure, confident expectation and reliance upon the integrity, strength, ability and surety of the One who was, is, and always will be with you in the totality of your seat of your emotions, passions, and intellect. Do not incline, depend, or rely upon your own intelligence and discernment to trust. In the whole of everything in your life, your actions, your conduct, your plans, your means of doing things, know and recognize God. Show Him to be real and true in what you do. In this He will make the narrow road (Matthew 7:13-14) you track along in this life continuous, direct, honorable, and evenly set, fixed only on Him.
Doing this has made me treasure these two verses far more than before.
So what's the deal with the "Yada, Yada, Yada" title? Was it merely to hook you into reading this long-winded exposition and a tribute to "Seinfeld"? (Side note, Seinfeld took the expression from 1920s Jewish comedians.) The answer, of course, is no. The word is "Yada`" (note the accent mark) and is pronounced yaw-dah'. It is the Hebrew word for "acknowledge". Rather than meaning "blah, blah, blah", I am stating "Acknowledge, Acknowledge, Acknowledge". In the writing program I teach, using a triple of anything draws the reader in and gets them to think deeper about this repetition. Think of how much deeper our lives would be if we acknowledged, acknowledged, acknowledged the LORD in the sum totality of every miniscule thing in our lives.