Decision Making
When we’re confronted with choices in life, how do we navigate them? There’s nothing wrong with considering possible consequences of our choices and weighing them. We can create our “pros and cons” lists and do risk assessments.
However, that’s only part of the equation, and it should be the smaller part!
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
Proverbs 3:5-8
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
Before we weigh possible outcomes, we should always go first to the wisdom of the one who knows the end from the beginning. We can use our tiny view of history that we have personal knowledge of to puzzle out what may happen next, but the author of history has already revealed to us a great deal!
The Crooked Path
Not only is it foolish, from this perspective, to trust in our own incomplete knowledge rather than trusting in the one who knows all things, but it also lends a false shine to really bad choices. We may imagine that the commands of God are additional restraints on our potential, but in reality we hamstring ourselves when we wander off the straight path God laid out grasping blindly for something better where only pain can be found.
While we imagine ourselves wiser for considering the forbidden ways, in reality we are seeking suffering.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
Proverbs 14:12
The allure of “our own way” is fools gold dangling over a pit.
Refreshing Rest
Instead of struggling and striving against the one who created the world and controls it, God promises that trusting in him and following his ways will provide you with a straight path. It is not only easier because it narrows your considerations to matters of liberty rather than all possible choices, but that path itself is much more clear than fighting upstream against the creator of the universe.
That doesn’t mean there will be no pain in this life. We live in a world full of sin and even Jesus (the only sinless man to ever live) suffered terribly. However, traveling through the storms of life becomes even more dangerous when we do so without a rudder. Rather than being driven by every wind and without a sense of direction, trusting in the Lord means always having a purpose and guide.
Don’t trust to false promises of an easier way. God’s commands are not a burden. Rather, it is great toil and borrowing trouble to go our own way and trust our own understanding.
