Now today I want to talk about the Proverbial Decision Maker. Let’s turn to the Old Testament book of Proverbs and see what we can learn about making better daily decisions. Maturity means knowing how to choose wisely. Our key text is Proverbs 16:9:
The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs His steps.
Years ago I was reading the newspaper, and there was an article about an entrepreneur in Great Britain named Tony Proverbs. To my knowledge, that’s the first time in my life I’ve heard of anyone with that last name. I immediately wondered to myself if there were any Proverbs living in Nashville, so I checked the phone book. Do you remember that strange book? It had everyone’s name and phone number in it? Well, I didn’t find anyone with that last name. Then I wondered how that surname developed. I concluded, rightly or wrongly, that there must have been someone in Medieval times, when surnames were developing, who was always quoting from and living by the verses in book of Proverbs, and soon he became known Mr. Proverbs.
Well, if only we were all known by that name. What a difference it would make in our lives and families and churches and communities if we all became living, walking, breathing embodiments of the book Proverbs! There is a verse in the book of Proverbs to regulate virtually every attitude and action that comprises our daily lives, and to be so saturated with Proverbs that it molds our daily actions and reactions—well, that would make us a group of people who were truly wise, prudent, disciplined, and useful for the Kingdom.
The prologue of the book of Proverbs in Proverbs 1:1-7 tells us that its purpose in the Bible—the reason God placed it here in the middle of His Word—is to enable us to live a prudent and disciplined lives, knowing that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
God designed the book of Proverbs ingeniously. He could have given us 31 topical chapters—one chapter on the tongue, with all the verse groups under that heading. We would read verse after verse about the way we should use our tongues in speaking. And the next chapter might be on greed and money. The next might be on sex. And so forth. But after the fourth or fifth verse on a topic, all the verses would tend to sound the same and we would have trouble focusing on the truth of each one. But we have all these topics and more scattered throughout the book, and as we read through Proverbs daily we come across all those topics rotating, as it were, through the pages of the book. They are organized enough to give us a chapter for each day; but the verses are random enough to meet us where we are.
But sometimes we do want to categorize and systematize them—at least I do. And so I read through the entire book of Proverbs, isolating every verse that had to do with making better decisions.
Maturity means knowing how to choose wisely, and making wise decisions isn’t as easy as it seems. I recall hearing about a man who hired himself out to a farmer, and on the first day his job was chopping wood, which he did very well. The second day, he was sent out to the field to dig weeds, which he did very well. The third it was raining, so the farmer put the man in the barn to sort potatoes. His job was to work his way through the bushel boxes, tossing away the rotten potatoes; but at the end of the day he quit.
The farmer was amazed. “The first day you chopped wood and the second day you weeded in the fields,” said the farmer. “Those were very hard jobs under the hot sun, and you did well. But today all you had to do was sit there and sort potatoes. Why did you quit?”
The man said, “I couldn’t stand making all those decisions.” And that’s the way I sometimes feel. As we go through life, we don’t mind the hard work; it’s making the decisions that wears us out. Yet, it’s our decisions that make us or break us as human beings.
- When God appeared to Moses at the burning bush, Moses had to make a decision.
- When the angel recruited Gideon to lead Israel, Gideon had to decide what to do.
- When Delilah tempted Samson, his entire fate was sealed by his decision.
- The prophet Elijah preached to the children of Israel, he told them to decide whom to follow. He said, “How long halt ye between two opinions?”
- When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” Peter and Andrew faced a decision.
- When the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, found himself standing face to face with Jesus of Nazareth, he had to make the most important decision of his life, and he had to make it quickly.
- When the apostle Paul found that his way into Asia was barred, he had to decide where to turn and what to do.
And every human being faces a bevy of decisions every day. Our ability to make good decisions is potentially our greatest asset in life. Every good book on leadership and management contains a chapter on the fine art of decision-making. The greatest management guru of the earlier generation was Peter Drucker, and his seminal book was entitled The Effective Executive. It only had seven chapters, and two of them were devoted to decision-making. It’s hard work, and sometimes it’s anguishing. Every one of us wishes we could turn back the clock and reverse some bad decision or another than we made.
When Admiral William Crowe was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he told Time Magazine, “I have known individuals who made a big decision and never gave it another thought. I don’t. When it’s a big issue, I don’t sleep soundly.”
Well, how can we learn to make decisions that let us sleep soundly? Proverbs 12:26 says, “The righteous should choose… carefully” (NKJV); and Proverbs 5:23 warns, “Death is the reward of an undisciplined life; your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end” (The Message).
As I read through the book of Proverbs searching out to see what it had to say on this subject, there seemed to be three great techniques the writers advocated.
Talk it Out
The first is to talk it out. Go to a friend. Find a counselor. Seek out an expert. Find someone who can look at the matter objectively, and seek counsel. Talk it out with someone. Listen to these verses:
- Proverbs 11:14 (NIV): For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisors make victory sure.
- Proverbs 12:15 (NIV): The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.
- Proverbs 13:10 (NIV): Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.
- Proverbs 15:22 (NIV): Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.
- Proverbs 19:20 (NIV): Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise.
- Proverbs 24:5-6 (NIV): A wise man has great power, and a man of knowledge increases strength; for waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisors.
This is so important that we can say it helped win the American Revolution. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, and within six months it appeared that the whole thing was a lost cause. The fledgling American troops had been defeated at New York, and Washington had lost 90 percent of his army. Despair descended on the colonies, and it seemed to be just a matter of time before the war ended in defeat.
On one side was General George Washington, and on the other side was Lord Charles Cornwallis. At critical moments, both men convened their advisors in counsels of war, but the two men had vastly different styles of leadership. When Washington met with his advisors, he actually listened to them and often hammered their advice into a consensus that formed his decisions. When Cornwallis gathered his advisors, he held court. He seldom asked advice and didn’t seem to hear it when it was offered. He just announced his decisions.
As a result, Washington made a series of better decisions, and the British forces lost a war they were on the verge of winning. He was following Proverbs 20:18, which says: Proverbs 20:18 (NIV): Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain advice.
In my four decades of being a local pastor, the advice and counsel and deliberations of the staff, deacons, finance committee, and many others were invaluable to me in helping me avoid unwise decisions as pastor. And in my personal life, I learned when I have a mind to do something but Katrina had hesitations about it, she was almost certainly right. The two of us make better decisions than I make by myself.
In making medical decisions, financial decisions, or legal decisions, I need good advice. In making personal decisions of all sorts, I need advice. So before making a decision, seek the advice of those you trust and who are knowledgeable in the areas requiring your attention. Go to them and talk it out.
Think it Over
Second, think it over. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” We can sometimes arrive at an accurate application of that verse by exchanging the “but” for an “and”—the mind of man plans his way, and the Lord directs his steps. In other words, the Lord guides us, not normally by bolts of lightning or messages in the sky, but by giving us brains to think through our options and determine His will in any given matter.
John Wesley said: “God generally guides me by presenting reasons to my mind for acting in a certain way.”
Dr. J. Oswald Sanders said: “God generally guides (us) by the exercise of (our) sanctified judgment.”
As a young man, I enjoyed the motivational essays of the late Earl Nightingale, whose motivational talks were on tapes you could buy. He had a rich deep voice. One of his essays is entitled, “The Great Problem Solving Tool,” and it was about the human brain. Nightingale claimed that most people only use about ten percent of their brain’s capacity, and in this lecture he put it this way:
[Their own brain] is the last place on earth the average person will turn to for help… You know why people don’t automatically turn their own vast mental resources on when faced with a problem? It’s because they never learned how to think. Most people will go to any length to avoid thinking when they’re faced with a problem. They will ask advice from the most illogical people, usually people who don’t know any more than they do: next-door neighbors, members of their families, and friends stuck in the same mental traps that they are. Very few of them use the muscles of their mind to solve their problems.
I think he’s right because I know from my own experience that I’m often likely to make decisions on impulse rather than thinking them through; but when I think over and ponder my steps, I’m much more likely to make a good decision. That’s why I’ve learned, whenever I’m faced with a big decision, to get away and think about it. Sometimes if it’s really a big decision, I’ll go away a few days; other times I can only manage a few hours or a few minutes; but if I can just go walking and think it through, I’m more confident of making the wiser choice.
This is the advice of the Proverbs:
- Proverbs 14:8 (NIV): The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.
- Proverbs 14:15 (NIV): The simple man believes anything, but a prudent (person) gives thought to his steps.
- Proverbs 21:29 (NIV): A wicked man puts up a bold front, but an upright man gives thought to his ways.
On several occasions several years ago, I heard the great Methodist preacher, Charles Allen, and I always looked forward to his sermons. He was a master in the pulpit. I once heard him tell a story that is also found in one of his books. A man came to see him so confused that he had made himself sick. He said, “If someone doesn’t tell me what to do, I will go crazy.” Allen said he couldn’t give him any advice until he had listened to the problem, so he asked the man to lay before him the entire situation. Allen listened to the whole thing. Then the preacher said, in effect, “I need time to ponder such a problem, and since you’ve been thinking about it longer than I have, do you have any ideas of your own? What do you think you should do?”
The man started to talk it out and pretty soon he had outlined a marvelous solution to his own problem. Charles Allen said, “That seems to me a fine answer and the answer to your questions.” The man got up and fervently thanked Dr. Allen and told him he was the wisest and most sensible man he’d ever talked to, and he left the room a new creation. Dr. Allen said, “I didn’t do anything for the man, except to encourage him to use his own mind.”
God gave us brains, the most advanced piece of creation in the entire universe—and most of our problems and decisions can be arrived at through the sanctified application of really thinking through a situation and pondering it in prayer. And that leads to my third point…
Pray it Through
In 1979, when Katrina and I were pastoring our wonderful little church in the mountains, I began to sense and know that God wanted me to move into a more populated area to minister. I had visited up and down the roads, but the valley we lived in was so sparsely populated that it was impossible to reach large numbers of people; and as a young pastor I felt limited. I’m not sure that was a correct sentiment, but that’s how I felt at the time.
One day the chairman of the pulpit committee of a growing suburban church called me and asked if I would come and meet with his people and consider becoming their pastor. This was in the Midwest, in an area that I loved. I was ready to jump at the chance. This was what I’d been wanting for some time, and I thought it sounded like a tailor-made opportunity for me. But instead of giving him an immediate answer on the phone, I told him I’d like a few days to pray about it.
Katrina and I were leaving for vacation, and we were going to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, and then on to Charlotte, North Carolina, for our annual denominational convention where I was giving the Sunday morning Sunday School message for the adults. There on the beach, I went for long walks every morning and every evening, just thinking and praying and telling the Lord how excited I was about moving to Chicago. But after praying for a week, I knew in my heart that God was saying, “No.” There was in inner impression that I should not move in that direction.
We went on to Charlotte, checked into our hotel, and I called my friend, who expressed his disappointment; and I felt terrible. The next morning, I taught Sunday School, and unbeknownst to me, there were some members of a church in the Nashville area in attendance. The next day, a man approached me and said he wanted to meet me. And five months later, Katrina and I showed up there to begin a long-term pastorate.
So many times it is in my prayer time that I sense God’s will for my life and I’m able to make decisions. And that’s not just true for me—that is the way it is for us as Christians. Solomon’s father, King David, wrote something in Psalm 37 that the steps of a good person are ordered by the Lord. And Solomon himself later wrote Proverbs 20:24 (NIV): A man’s steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?
The wonderful poet, John Oxenham, put this truth into a little verse he wrote:
Not for one single day
Can I discern my way,
But this I surely know,–
Who gives the day,
Will show the way,
So I securely go.
- Proverbs 20:21 (NIV): Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
- Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV): 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.
Several years ago, I spoke to the students of Brian College in Tennessee, and my subject touched on God’s ability to guide us in matters large and small. Afterward I was bombarded with questions. Another speaker some weeks before had suggested that God may establish certain parameters for our lives, but He normally does not involve Himself in specifics. He sets the tone, but we strike the notes. He appoints the destination but leaves the route to us. He has little to do with planning the details of our lives.
I respectfully disagree with the prior speaker, whoever he was. God’s guidance is specific, detailed, daily, and pre-ordained from the foundation of the earth. I believe that’s what the Psalmist was implying in Psalm 139:16: “Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be” (NIV).
Jesus avowed that God was more concerned about the details of our lives than He is for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:26-28), and our Lord said in Matthew 10:29-20 (NIV): “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
If He counts the hairs on our heads, He’s certainly interested in the moments in our days. We just have to acknowledge His Lordship in all our ways and He has promised to direct our paths. That begins to happen when we make the most important decision of all—the decision to follow Jesus Christ and let Him become the Lord of our lives. Have you done that?
If Thou but suffer God to guide thee,
And trust in Him in all thy ways,
He’ll give thee strength whate’er befall thee,
And bear thee through the evil days.
Who trusts in God all unafraid,
Builds on the rock that naught can move.
Whenever you have to make a big decision, or even a small one, Talk it Out, Think it Over, and Pray it Through. The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs His steps.