How to Make Life Work - Wisdom for Guidance and Making Decisions | Proverbs 4 & Selected Scriptures
Phil Krause | August 11, 2024
If you would this morning, open your Bibles to Proverbs 4. We’re going to be starting there—Proverbs 4. While you do that, think about this: the shape of our lives in many ways is a result of the decisions that you and I make. We do make lots of decisions through the course of our lives.
When you’re younger you’re thinking about things like where do I go to school, college decisions, career decisions, dating decisions, spouse—who should I marry? Then once you are married there are choices to make about where to live, how to spend your money, when to have children, whether to go to church or not, and if so, where to go to church.
Then once you have children you have lots of choices to make for the kids, right? Choices like their education, their friendships, what influences you’re going to allow into their lives, what books they read, the TV they watch, when they should get a phone, all these sorts of questions come into play and decisions that we have to make for them. Eventually though, if things go the way they should, you go into more of an advisory role for your children and you’re helping them make their own decisions now about things like where to go to college and who to marry and who to date and all these sorts of things.
But along the way we’re also making personal decisions in the course of our lives—mid-career changes perhaps, or what to do with our money or how to plan for the future. In the senior years, it might seem like a lot of decisions are behind but now you’re thinking about things like health decisions, medical choices you have to make and you’re also thinking about the legacy you’re going to leave behind for your children and grandchildren. So we all make lots of decisions and we all need guidance.
What makes this even more difficult for Christians is how much confusion there can be related to how God actually guides us. I heard a story of a woman—this really happened—a woman who was trying to decide whether or not to go visit someone across the country. She was thinking about traveling to visit this person and she wasn’t sure she should do that or not. So she was reading her Bible, she happened to look up at the clock right when it said “747”, and she knew that that was a kind of airplane. So she said, “It’s God’s will for me. This is a sign that I should go on this trip.” Okay.
This issue can be confusing too because we can ask ourselves, “Do I get a specific verse for every decision that I need to make?” Maybe you’ve heard about the guy who thought it would be a good idea to figure out God’s will for his life by just randomly flipping through his Bible and choosing a verse and that would be God’s will for him. Well, so he got out his big King James family Bible and he flipped to a certain spot, closed his eyes, looked at it said, “And Judas went out and hanged himself.” He thought, “Well, that can’t be right.” So he tried again. He looked again and it said, “Go thou and do likewise.”
So there are important principles of Bible interpretation that just might come into play in a situation like that, don’t you think? Well, then we can also wonder things like, “Does God speak to us audibly?” On all of these questions, Proverbs is a huge help.
This is our next to last message in our summer series, How to Make Life Work: Wisdom from the Proverbs. Here’s our outline today for this whole area of guidance and making decisions. Proverbs teaches us to:
1. Walk on the right path.
2. Carefully plan our steps.
3. Get to know the guide.
1. Walk on the right path.
So first, you’ve got to be sure you’re walking on the right path. Proverbs 4:10-11 says, “Listen, my son, accept what I say and the years of your life will be many. I instruct you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths.”
Drop down to verse 18. “The path of the righteous is like the morning sun shining ever brighter until the full light of day, but the way of the wicked is like deep darkness. They do not know what makes them stumble.”
Now this goes back to something we saw earlier in the series on Proverbs and that is the concept of two different ways—two different paths to be on—the way of wisdom versus the way of folly (foolishness). The path of the righteous as opposed to the way of the wicked. Straight paths contrasted with crooked paths. The path of the just or the path of the unjust. The path of the prudent, or discerning, versus the simple or the naive, and so on.
This two paths perspective is really foundational to understanding Proverbs. It is a helpful place to start when we’re thinking about this issue of guidance as well, because it would be foolish to be overly concerned with decisions about temporary matters while ignoring the far more important issue of your eternal destiny.
So I have three exhortations for us today. First of all, be sure you are headed in the right direction. We need the right destination and the route to get there, right? If you’re going to go on a trip you have to know where you’re going. We’re all on a trip and our status is of pilgrims. We’re on a journey and we’re not permanent residents here in this world right now.
Have you ever heard the full title of John Bunyan’s famous allegory? We always think of it as, The Pilgrim’s Progress, but it’s, The Pilgrim’s Progress From This World to That Which Is to Come. Interesting.
Christian, the main character in that story, left behind the City of Destruction and he knew that he wanted to go to the Celestial City. In that story, Christian, at times, is tempted to get off the right path and onto one that looks nicer or easier and he ends up going places that he shouldn’t have gone and it gets him into some trouble. But, the general progress of his life is toward the Celestial City.
Remember that in your decision making the most important thing is not where you should go to college or who you should marry or what career you should choose or things like that. As important as those things are, even more important is what path am I on? What path am I traveling? Are you walking on the path that leads to eternal life or are you on the way that leads to death?
Second exhortation is to remember that it is a gradual journey. Proverbs 4:18 again says, “The path of the righteous is like the morning sun shining ever brighter to the full light of day.” So there’s a progression. If you’ve ever gotten up early enough to see the sunrise, you know it starts pitch black and then gradually the light starts coming until, eventually, you have the full light of day. The path of the righteous is like that, this is saying. The light can seem dim at first, but it grows brighter over time.
Now this perspective is a corrective to our desire for immediate, instantaneous guidance. This is true, isn’t it? We want immediate guidance. We want to know right away how this is going to go. God puts us on a gradual path. We want to know every detail and the whole journey right now. But God shows us the ultimate destination and then he clearly marks the way forward, but we still have to walk one step at a time and there are many bends in the road, many surprises along the way that we didn’t foresee. So we want concrete direction on specific bid-ticket decisions but God wants to focus, first of all, on our character and how we respond in situations—words, attitudes, interactions, all those responses. So it’s gradual.
Then third, don’t swerve off the path. Stay on the right path. Don’t get distracted. How do we stay on it? Well, Proverbs 4:20-27. “My son, pay attention to what I say. Turn your ear to my words, do not let them out of your sight. Keep them within your heart for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body. Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity, keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or to the left, keep your foot from evil.”
So we stay on the path when we attend to details of our present influences, like what we’re reading or watching or listening to. We pay attention to our motives. That’s our heart attitudes—the desires that are driving us, our words and our daily decisions. These are all ways that we stay on the path.
Now this reminds us of the importance of obeying the commands we already know even if we don’t have answers for questions about the future. Elisabeth Elliot said this, “Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we’re not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in scripture depended on one person’s seemingly small act of obedience. Rest assured, do what God tells you to do now and depend on it, you will be shown what to do next.” I like that.
So this is the first step to following God’s guidance. Walk on the right path today.
2. Carefully plan your steps.
Now, assuming that you’re on the right path, you’re on that path that leads to life and not to death, Proverbs does say a lot about planning and making decisions. When we put these verses together, we can suggest a wise, five-step approach to making decisions. These steps sometimes get mushed together. It applies especially to those situations where you have time to think through things in advance and consider options. Things like what college do I go to? Or which person should I date? Or is it the right time to get married? Or what career do I pursue? What job do I take? What church do we join? Etc.
So five steps. The first step is to gather the necessary information for making a wise decision. We might call this step preparation. Proverbs 24:27, “Put your outdoor work in order and get your fields ready. After that, build your house.” Is that an interesting one? Why does it say to first plow your fields on the farm and then worry about building the house? We don’t think this way, but keep in mind, how did they make their food? Where did it come from? They had to grow it a lot of times, or their income was something that needed to be grown in an agricultural culture like that. If you first built your house, then suddenly you don’t have time to plant your crops or whatever and you’re without food or money. What does that mean for us? This is a way of saying, basically, think ahead. Make plans. Don’t just do things willy-nilly, you need to try to do it in the right order.
The application is this: sometimes we make bad decisions because we lack information. We haven’t prepared properly in advance. So we can enter a career, for example, without really knowing what kind of work we’re going to be doing or we get involved in some kind of a relationship without really knowing anything about the character about the other person.
I’ll give you a personal illustration here from my life. In my senior year of high school, I thought some about where to go to college and what to study. I applied to a few different schools, but honestly, it wasn’t really a lot. I didn’t put a lot of work into it, and so almost arbitrarily, I chose to go to my father’s alma mater which happened to be predominantly an engineering and aviation technology kind of school. And so I chose Electrical Engineering as my major. I thought engineers get paid pretty decent money, so why not?
Looking back, I think I was being a little bit lazy. I just wanted to decide something so I could say I had made a decision. Now, I also need to say that I have nothing against engineers, okay? This world would be a terrible place without you engineers. I’m thankful you exist. But for me, a career in engineering would not have been a good fit.
Also, I should say that it is not at all unusual for a freshman in college to not exactly know where they’re going for the rest of their life, so there’s some normality there. But that was certainly the case for me. I loved all my Gen Ed classes. I then started realizing that engineering required a lot of math, and that was something I struggled with. So about half way through my sophomore year of college, my grades in some of my classes were suffering—specifically Engineering Calculus 2, a class I actually took twice.
So, I started questioning my choice—is this what I want to spend my life doing? It became something I was thinking about and worrying about and praying about a lot. I started to think I should change majors. I knew I couldn't afford this time to be quite so flippant, or random, about the choice.
So what did I do this time? I sought counsel. I went to two different professors that I respected. I got some great advice from them. One of them said, “You know, this college has a counseling program. You ought to talk to the counselor and take advantage of what they’re offering.” So I did that. I went to the counselor. He had me take a personality test, which is something I had never done before. That made me start focusing on how God had made me and what I enjoyed doing.
During this whole time I was praying like crazy and to make a long story short—probably too late—I ended up transferring to a different college and changing my major from Engineering to Communication and Bible. So in other words, this time—the second time—there was solid preparation. I had sufficient information and looking back, I can say that for a variety of reasons, it was a much better decision in my life.
That leads us to the second step, which I’ve already kind of mentioned in my too-long story, and that is consultation. Seek advice from others. Proverbs 11:14, “For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisors.” Proverbs 15:22, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed.” And Proverbs 12:15, “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.”
So get advice. All of us should have a circle of close friends and mentors with whom we discuss the big decisions in our lives. But we should be sure we’re seeking counsel from the right sources. It should be biblical counsel—never consider or receive counsel that is contrary to scripture. It might be professional counsel. Some issues need professional expertise—like if you’re in the midst of some kind of a tax dispute you’d better see a CPA or some kind of a tax advisor.
There is wisdom in getting much counsel with many advisors. Proverbs 15 says, “With many advisors plans succeed.” And make sure it’s unbiased counsel. Don’t just listen to people who are going to tell you what you want to hear.
Do you remember King Rehoboam, the son of Solomon? I mean, if anyone should have known better it would have been the son of the guy who wrote a lot of these proverbs down, right? Well, the people came to him complaining about how hard Solomon had worked them and they were asking Rehoboam to back off. So Rehoboam told them to come back after three days and he would have an answer for them. He sought counsel.
You don’t need to turn there, but let me read 1 Kings 12. “Then Rehoboam took counsel with the old men who had stood before Solomon, his father, while he was yet alive, saying, ‘How do you advise me to answer this people?’ And they said to him, ‘If you will be a servant to this people today, and serve them and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.’” Okay, so far so good in the story. Great advice, right?
The problem was what happened next. It says, “But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him. And he said to them, ‘What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us?’ And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, ‘Thus you shall speak to this people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy but you lighten it for us.’ Thus you shall say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs.’”
You can see in the drawing there by Hans Holbein the Younger that he’s holding out his pinky finger, right? And now, “‘Whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips but I will discipline you with scorpions.’” Well, he went with his buddies’ advice and that selective listening on Rehoboam’s part had disastrous consequences because it led directly to the splitting up of the kingdom with Israel to the north going with Jeroboam and Judah in the south sticking with Rehoboam.
So, first, preparation, then consultation—seek the advice of others, and then, third, consideration. Take your time and think it through. Proverbs 14:15 says, “The simple believe anything but the prudent give thought to their steps.”
Here we see that careful thought is an essential part of God’s guidance. What are we supposed to think about here, right? If we are supposed to give thought to our steps, what are we to think about? The situation—all the information you’ve already collected and gathered, the various options, the pros and cons. This is the kind of thinking he’s talking about—the counsel you’ve received. Most importantly, think about what God's word says in relation to this decision and how might it apply?
In his book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer said, “The fundamental mode whereby our rational creator guides his rational creatures is by rational understanding and application of his written word.” Did you hear the repeated word there? I think Packer is intentionally repeating this word “rational”. He’s saying, “Think. Use your head. Evaluate your motives, your attitude, your emotions. Think about the potential consequences, whether good or bad, that any given choice might lead to.” There’s an important point here that God’s guidance isn’t going to be irrational. It’s not unreasonable. God gave us brains, so we need to use them. Paul told Timothy, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
Also, we need to take time with this part of the process. Don’t be hasty. There are dangers to being hasty. Proverbs 19:2 says, “Desire without knowledge is not good. How much more will hasty feet miss the way?” And Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”
Next we see the need to proceed with caution. This is the caution—beware of self-trust and over-confidence. Proverbs 12:15, “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.” And Proverbs 28:26, “Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.” So these proverbs warn us to beware of self-trust. This is trusting our emotions, our feelings, our own judgment.
And can I take a moment to say something about what you could call “I’ve got a peace about this” theology. Maybe you’ve heard someone say it. Maybe you’ve said it yourself. I don’t want to be too hard on you. But it’s this concept of, basically, “I was really struggling over this decision. I didn’t know what to do and finally I said, ‘Okay, what if I do this?’ And God just gave me a peace in my heart about that, and so that’s how I knew that was the way to go.” There’s some problems with that kind of thinking—that phrase. You can have peace about something and still be wrong, right? Be careful not to use this “I’ve got peace in my heart” as sort of a trump card to sort of quell any disagreements that someone may have with you about this choice that you’re making.
Another thing is that the lack of peace about something doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the wrong way to go. You might feel conflicted or anxious or you might see that there’s going to be really difficult things if you go this way, and that might be the right way to go. Think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He’s praying to God and he’s sweating great drops of blood, it says. Do you think he had peace in his heart at that moment? No. But he was praying and seeking the will of the father.
No, of course, do pay attention to your emotions. Pay attention to your thinking, your reasoning, but don’t trust them exclusively. Listen to counsel. Stay humble because you could be wrong. Alright?
There’s another application here, and that is to make your plans but hold them loosely. Proverbs 27:1 says, “Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring.” So, preparation, consultation, consideration, caution, and then this last step is the decision itself. You actually need to make a decision. Make a decision and act. Don’t get caught in what has been called “the paralysis of analysis”, right? Analysis and research and all those details are important, but at the end of it all, you need to make a decision.
Proverbs 13:16, “All who are prudent act with knowledge, but fools expose their folly.” Now this helps us guard against trying to be more spiritual or mystical than God wants us to be. There are many, many matters in life where we don’t need a word from God or a certain kind of feeling. We need, instead, to just exercise sanctified common-sense. That’s what this is saying. “All who are prudent act with knowledge, but fools expose their folly.”
So what about when you make a bad decision? What if you look at your life and you see a trail of bad decisions behind you—they’ve landed you in some really difficult situations? Maybe you’re in a difficult career or marriage or you have bad health or disastrous finances—whatever. What about those times where you’ve done everything necessary to make a good decision and you still end up suffering?
The book of Proverbs doesn’t just show us the right path to walk on and it doesn't just tell us to carefully plan our steps, it also encourages us to get to know the guide himself. That’s our third point.
3. Get to know the guide.
There’s great comfort in this thought. God himself will guide you. You’re not in this all by yourself. We’re going to learn more about the character of God as revealed in the Proverbs next week, but there are two things to note here: first of all, God’s sovereignty over human plans and secondly, his faithful guidance of his people.
(1) God’s sovereignty over human plans—listen to several verses from Proverbs about human planning and listen for how in each of these verses, the Lord’s work is set in contrast to human plans.
Proverbs 16:1, “To humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue.”
Proverbs 16:3, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do and he will establish your plans.”
And then verse 9, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
Tremper Longman, commenting on Proverbs 16:3 says this, “All planning should be done in recognition that God can indeed overturn it. The thought is not that we simply pray for God to honor our plans and establish them, rather it’s the idea that we submit our entire life’s action to God so that even if our human plans are subverted we can recognize an even deeper plan at work in our lives.”
So we see that deeper plan at work in Proverbs 19:21 where it says, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
Or Proverbs 21:30, “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.”
Just a comment here about two different biblical perspectives on the will of God—his revealed will and his secret will. The Bible refers to both in places. Deuteronomy 29:29 is a great one. It says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” The things revealed, these concern the moral will of God—how he wants us to live as expressed in his law.
The secret things that belong to the Lord encompass many things that we don’t understand, but they’re ordered according to his sovereign plan. So understanding this actually produces humility in us. You recognize that you are not the master of your fate. You’re not the captain of your soul. God is in charge. And it also gives us confidence because though you can sin and make mistakes and veer from God’s clearly revealed moral will for your life, you can’t get outside of God’s sovereign plan. If you belong to him even the bad things—even the bad things—scripture promises they are going to work for our ultimate good. That’s what Romans 8:28 says, right? “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who’ve been called according to his purpose.”
Now this assurance should never produce in us some kind of an excuse for laziness or foolishness or sin, but it does give us comfort that God’s ultimate purpose cannot be defeated even by our own foolish choices.
(2) The second aspect I’d like to draw your attention to in this matter of getting to know the guide is God’s faithful guidance of his people. One of the best known, best loved passages in Proverbs 3 says this: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
The Puritan commentator, Matthew Henry, applies this passage well when he says, “We must not only in our judgment believe that there is an overruling hand of God ordering and disposing of us and all our affairs, but we must solemnly own it and address ourselves to him accordingly. We must ask his leave and not design anything but what we are sure is lawful. [Meaning it’s morally right; it’s not against God’s revealed will.] We must ask his advice and beg direction from him, not only when the case is difficult but in every case, be it ever so plain. We must ask success of him as those who know the race is not to the swift. We must refer ourselves to him as one from whom our judgment proceeds and patiently, and with a holy indifference, wait his award. In all our ways that prove direct and fair and pleasant in which we gain our point to our satisfaction, we must acknowledge God with thankfulness. In all our ways which prove cross and uncomfortable and that are hedged up with thorns, we must acknowledge God with submission. Our eye must be ever towards God. To him we must, in everything, make our requests known.”
Now let me close by addressing three kinds of people. I would think with this many people in the room we have all three categories represented here.
First of all there are some of you who are on the wrong path. You’re not walking the path of the righteous, but instead you’re on the path of the wicked. You’re not walking the path of the righteous. Your life isn’t characterized by honesty, integrity, purity, justice, compassion. You’re not walking in the way of light but in the way of darkness. Your greatest need this morning isn’t vocational wisdom. It’s not direction for where to go to college or who to date or marry or what size of a house to buy or whether to take the promotion. No, your greatest need is to get on the right road. So, turn to Christ. Turn to the one who rescues us out of darkness and brings us into his marvelous light. Repent! Get on the path of the just that shines brighter and brighter until full day.
Second, those with unwise approaches to decision making. The word for you—for all of us—is to learn to use sanctified common-sense. Is this you? You’re on the right road generally speaking, but you’ve developed unwise, unbiblical patterns of making decisions. Maybe you’re trying to be more spiritual than the Bible, looking for signs when God simply wants you to exercise common-sense. Maybe you tend to make emotional decisions that are unchecked by careful preparation and forethought. I think for most of us, the danger is that we make decisions in isolation rather than seeking advice from close friends and wise counselors. We play lone ranger and we don’t open ourselves up to the wisdom of community. If that describes you, then internalize the wisdom of Proverbs and ask God to help you exercise sanctified common-sense.
And then, finally, maybe you’re anxious or suffering. The word for you is trust the goodness and wisdom of your sovereign God. Maybe you’re anxious because of bad decisions you've already made, whether financial or vocational or relational. Maybe your marriage is hurting or your job is in jeopardy or you’ve found yourself in a life situation that has brought misery instead of the happiness that you expected. God’s word to you is to trust him. Trust his good, wise, sovereignty in your life.
In the senior adult class we’ve been talking about a sermon by C.H. Spurgeon and one of the things he says is, “Turn your cares into prayers.” Your anxieties—turn your anxieties into an opportunity for prayer. You don’t yet know how God may weave all these dark threads of your life into something beautiful.
In the Lord of the Rings, the wizard, Gandalf, tells Frodo, the hobbit, “Even the wise cannot see all ends.” You don’t yet know the end of your story or how God may use the circumstances you’re in. So know him. Trust him. Submit to him. He will make your paths straight.
We’ll give the last word to St. Patrick of Ireland who said, “I will arise today through God’s strength to pilot me, God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me, God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me.”
Let’s pray.
Our Father in heaven, thank you for not leaving us in the dark. Thank you for showing us the differences between the right path and the path that leads to death. And thank you for making it clear to us, not only who you are, but what you expect of us.
So we ask you, Lord, for your wisdom. Help us to carefully plan our steps. Help us to clearly think through things and be rational to study your word, to reason as we make decisions. But through it all help us to get to know you. When all around us seems dark, may we seek the light of your face and thank you, Jesus.
You are our perfect wisdom in the flesh. Thank you for having the same submissive attitude that you ask of us when Jesus said, “Not my will but yours be done.” So work in our hearts even right now.
For the one who needs to get on the right path, use whatever means you would to draw him or her to yourself and may they feel a holy restlessness until their souls find their rest in you. Help them to see the desperation there is to being on the path that leads to destruction. And for all of us, teach us common-sense. Help us to trust in your goodness and wisdom and sovereignty. It’s all for your glory that we pray in the name of Jesus, amen.
Phil Krause
