Everyone wants to make wise decisions. Everyone struggles with knowing how to do this.
So what does the Bible say about decision-making? If you ransack the Bible looking for a decision tree, a cost-benefit analysis, or even a step-by-step approach to decision-making, you won’t find it.
I’ve talked to people who feel frustrated by this alleged oversight on God’s part. They might not use these exact words, but their sentiment is: “If God is going to give us a book, couldn’t he save at least one page for a process for making wise decisions?”
I think this frustration is typical of our age of information and artificial intelligence. We assume that more information, better research, and deeper analysis will yield wiser decisions.
The hauntingly prescient words of T. S. Elliot are apropos to our age:
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death.
The Bible, of course, does not deny the importance of information and research (Proverbs 18:13; 15:22). It just places these pursuits within a broader context. Instead of giving us lists, processes, or steps for making wise decisions, the Bible shows us how to be wise people.
The book of Proverbs, for example, consistently emphasizes that a wise life is one that is rooted in a proper relationship with God—a relationship defined as the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7). It stresses the proper condition and orientation of one’s heart: “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (Proverbs 4:23, NLT), and “trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Proverbs 3:5).
The Bible’s overall emphasis on being a certain kind of person who makes wise decisions leads me to suggest the following proposition about the Bible’s teaching on wise decision-making:
Wise decisions are made by wise-hearted people
who trust and follow the Lord
together.
Each part of that proposition is worth unpacking, which I intend to do in a series of three posts.
First, wise decisions are made by wise-hearted people.
The Function of Your Heart
I say wise-hearted because Scripture points to the heart as the engine and control room for our desires, aims, and decisions. Contrary to the way we use this word in English, the heart is not merely your emotional side versus your intellectual side. The Hebrew word translated “heart” (leb) covers a much wider range of intellectual, emotional, and volitional activity, including deciding, loving, longing, and sorrowing.
Your heart, in other words, is the part of you that imagines what is best for your life and acts accordingly. Your heart has the capacity to envision something—whether a marriage, career, family, reputation—and says, “Now that—that is what I want.”
Someone has said that what the heart finds most lovable, the mind finds most reasonable; and what the mind finds most reasonable, the will finds most doable. This is why, as you seek to make wise choices, you must start with your heart: if it’s not functioning properly, then some options won’t even appear desirable to you, and so clearly you won’t take them.
Why Some Choices Just Don’t Appeal to You
I think this can be demonstrated by an example. Imagine a young man who watches a video of an ultramarathoner, and is enchanted by the idea of long distance running. He begins to get up earlier to run. He watches his diet. He follows world-class runners on social media and subscribes to running publications. Four months later, he is scrolling on his phone and comes across two ads back-to-back. One is an ad for sports betting, the other is an ad for a half marathon. He hardly notices the sports betting ad, but naturally he is attracted by the half marathon ad, and so he decides to register for the race.
Now rewind four months and imagine the same young man. Instead of watching a video of an ultramarathoner, he hears that one of his friends won a large sum of money in sports betting, and he too becomes enamored with placing bets online. So he starts placing small bets now and then and begins to sees a little luck. Four months later, he is scrolling on his phone and comes across the same two ads: one for sports betting, and the other for a half marathon. Naturally, he will hardly notice the half marathon ad, but will be deeply attracted to the sports betting ad, and will probably place another bet.
Do you see why the young man in the second scenario chose the sports betting over the half marathon? It wasn’t because he lined up the two options and ran a cost-benefit analysis, No, he hardly even noticed the other option because of what his heart had been trained to love.
The point of this comparison is not to comment on the wisdom of marathon running over sports betting (although I have my opinions!) but to demonstrate the heart’s power to shape our decisions, apart from any decision tree, cost-benefit analysis, or decision-making steps.
What your heart finds most lovable, your eyes find most visible.
Do you see? What your hearts find most lovable, your wills finds most doable. You could even say that what your heart finds most lovable, your eyes find most visible.
It’s a sobering thought: There might be some very wise choices to which you have been blind because they didn’t even register as viable options for your life. On the other hand, there may be some very foolish choices that seemed obvious—maybe even inevitable—because you couldn’t imagine anything else.
No wonder the Bible insists, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (Proverbs 4:23).
*featured image from mcchrystalgroup.com.
