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Making Decisions in God’s Will (part 2)
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4. Good decision-makers seek wisdom.
It always happens this way: You have to decide on whether or not to move to another part of the country in order to further your career. Just when you feel that you’ve decided, another opportunity springs up. Now you are torn! What is God’s will here? What is he trying to tell me? And when I decide, how will I know I made the right decision—that I chose as God wanted me to choose?
As a pastor, I get asked those kinds of questions a lot. But I hope that I have been clear this week and last: These questions are the wrong kinds of questions to ask! Instead of asking
“What is God’s will?” we need to ask, “How do I make good decisions?”
I would say to a person faced with that kind of situation, “You’ve got two great choices in front of you! You should thank God that he giving you these opportunities to grow in maturity by allowing you to make choices. You should weigh the two choices based on your spiritual priorities and personal priorities and make your wisest choice. God has graciously given you the responsibility to decide the best you can.”
Psalm 32:8-9 reads, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
At first, this verse sounds like God will lead us by the nose in making all our decisions for us. But verse 8 actually says that God will “instruct” (the Hebrew word means, “give insight, or “give understanding”), that God will “teach” (derived from the word, torah, which is the Law of God—so God will teach us how to live by his commands); and God will “counsel” (from the word that means “give advice.”). Then in verse 9, he says that he does not want us to be led around like we were controlled by bit and bridle! Commenting this verse, Willem VanGemeren writes,
“God gives the godly freedom on the highway of godliness. Anything other than the road of wisdom is folly and shows lack of understanding.”
(Expositor’s Bible Commentary).
What God wants, more than having to lead us by a bit and bridle, is for us to develop godly wisdom.
A favorite verse on the will of God is this: “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.”
(Proverbs 3:5-6) Now look at another part of Proverbs as to learn how God will make your paths straight.
“Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.” (Proverbs 2:12-15)
How will you be saved from crooked paths and live on the straight path? WISDOM!
All through Scripture, we find godly people making decisions based on WISDOM.
Think for a moment about the qualifications for leadership in the church. Is it the ability to divine the will of God? No!
> Jesus told them to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
(Matthew 10:16)
> Deacons were chosen “who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.” (Acts 6:3)
> Elders are to be prudent and blameless—the language used for the qualifications of the overseers of the church are things like
“above reproach,” “temperate,” “self-controlled,” “respectable,” “not given to drunkenness,” “not quarrelsome,” “not overbearing,” “not quick-tempered” (1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1). The reason why these and other qualifications are listed is because leaders make decisions, and those decisions need to be made by spiritually mature people who know God’s will as revealed in Scripture and have learned how to make wise and prudent decisions.
A very practical way to develop wisdom and to make wise decisions is by surrounding yourself with wise people. The very first verse in the book of Psalms tells us,
“Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.”
(Psalm 1:1)
In other words, make your decisions not by the way of life you see on television or on the popular radio talk shows. They do not handle the big issues of our day with a whole lot of insight or depth or impartiality. We are told to seek the counsel of those who walk in righteousness—those who are seeking to yield their lives to Jesus Christ. So,
seek biblical
counsel.
Also, the first nine chapters of Proverbs is trying to convince young people to listen to the wise advice of older people, especially parents. So, be sure to seek experienced counsel.
Also, seek the best available counsel. Those who have been through similar experiences are great to sit down with and have a conversation. And (this must also be said), in some situations, sometimes wise counsel is not necessarily Christian counsel. If I am seeking to make a wise choice on whether or not to have surgery, the first level of decision-making is to filter it through whether or not it is a biblical surgery, or one for selfish or vain reasons.
Then I want to talk to or read the testimonies of others who have undergone such a surgery—Did the surgery work? Were its effects lasting? What kind of side-effects were there? What can I expect in my recovery? Then I need to ask who the best surgeons for this particular procedure are. But once I have decided that such a surgery is not immoral and probably a good idea, I want expert counsel. I want to talk with the best surgeon available, not necessarily a Christian surgeon, and not simply the friendliest surgeon. Some base their decision on “He’s a Christian!” or “Oh, he is so friendly!” My question is this: “Is he a good doctor?” I want to talk to a reputable surgeon who has seen this problem a lot and can give good counsel.
So, the fourth guide on making good decisions is to seek wisdom.
5. Good decision-makers may be guided by a prophetic prompting from God, but not always.
We sometimes experience inner-promptings from God about our situations and the issues that others face. These inner-promptings are what theologians properly call God’s “revelation” to us as individuals (with a small
“r” to differentiate this from biblical “Revelation” that is absolute and infallible) and when we tell others about these things, it is properly called “prophecy” (with a small
“p” to differentiate it from the Old Testament Prophets who spoke the very words of God).
Now, I list this source of guidance last on purpose! In making good decisions, we should first obey the law of love, follow our
giftings, and godly desires, consider our circumstances, and seek wisdom. Why do I list this last? Because we have a tendency to seek some inner-prompting from God
first in making our decisions. But when we do this, we short-cut what God is trying to do for us by developing us into the spiritually mature people. He does not want us to be people led around by the bit and bridle.
That is the danger with many of the more flashy spiritual gifts—they get elevated higher than they should be. There are some churches where people stand and say they have a “revelation from God” and they share a “prophecy.” While I am not denying that God can and still speak to us today, such a practice minimizes the most important revelation from God—his Word revealed to us in Scripture. Instead of the hard work of seeking to understand and apply the Bible to life, some seek to take the short-cut of a spontaneous prophecy from God.
God does speak today—mainly through his Word written to us. And he will also, on occasion, speak to us directly—through
an inner prompting concerning our, or somebody else’s, circumstances.
But please hear this: The New Testament never gives this “prophecy” the same authority as the teaching of the Bible. Any individual “revelation” or “prophecy” that we receive does not carry the same authority as the teaching of Scripture, and in fact, must be subject to and evaluated on the basis of the authoritative teaching of Scripture.
Why?
Because, even though the giver of the revelation is infallible, we are! Our interpretation of what God is telling us is always going to be skewed by our fallen nature. That is why, when Paul instructs the Corinthians on how to properly use prophecy in their church gatherings,
“Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.”
(1 Cor. 14:29). And “Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.” (1 Thess. 5:20-21). In other words, what is said must be
evaluated—tested to see what is good and what is not; we should accept some prophecies and reject others based on this
testing and weighing.
So, when we feel an inner-prompting as to the will of God, we must not quickly jump to the conclusion that we’ve got the message right!
Sure, there will be times that we will feel an inner-prompting from God to do something or to tell somebody something for their good. But these things must be weighed by the fact that while the messenger (God) is infallible, the receiver (me) may be interpreting the message in an erroneous way. How you understand the inner-prompting must be weighed, it must be evaluated.
We must remember what God said through Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jer. 17:9). So we must pause and evaluate what we are hearing to make sure we are getting it right.
How do you do this? Time, study, meditation, prayer, conversations. Take the time to study the Scriptures about what you are feeling. Meditate on what the absolute, “for-sure” Word of God has to say, and filter what you feel God is telling you through that. Pray for the ability to understand clearly what God is telling you. And talk with others who are filled with the Holy Spirit to try to discern what He is telling you.
But I want to say this clearly: Rather than hoping to be led in all your decisions by a prophetic word from God, we must remember that we should find our focus of joy, our expectation for guidance, our delight in what God has revealed in the Bible. There you have the treasure of infinite worth!
As Donald Gee, a charismatic writer, admits, “Many of our errors where spiritual gifts are concerned arise when we want the extraordinary and exceptional to be made the frequent and habitual. Let all who develop excessive desire for ‘messages’ through the gifts take warning from the wreckage of past generations as well as of our contemporaries…The Holy Scriptures are a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.”
(Spiritual Gifts in the Work of Ministry Today
as quoted in Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 1059).
Think about it! In the pages of Scripture, you have the very words of God speaking to you in a language you can understand. Rather than seeking frequent guidance through prophecy, we must emphasize that it is in Scripture that we are to find the guidance for our lives.
I will end with the words of my Theology professor from seminary, Wayne Grudem, in his excellent book
Systematic Theology.
“In Scripture is our source of direction, our focus when seeking God’s will, our sufficient and completely reliable standard.”
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” (Ps. 119:105)
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