Advice for Living Wisely
The book of Proverbs provides a compelling collection of wisdom from God’s perspective. This wisdom equips a person to make good choices and avoid bad ones. Although no amount of wisdom will insulate a person from all the negative effects of a sinful world, this wisdom enables him to respond to sinful tendencies within and to evil influences without in a skillful way, avoiding unnecessary failure. Consider, for example, the godly advice offered in Proverbs 3:5-12.
This section connects true wisdom with having a proper relationship to God. Such a mindset is more profound than viewing wisdom merely as a formal set of principles, rules, or guidelines. Notice this relational aspect of wisdom in the phrases “in the LORD,” “acknowledge him,” “he shall direct,” “fear the LORD,” “honor the LORD,” “of the LORD,” “his correction,” and “the LORD loves, “[the LORD] delights.” Recognizing this, a wise person understands that making good choices requires something more than a head to make intelligent choices and hands to do respectable things. This requires a heart to love God supremely.
With this in view, consider the following four sets of advice for living wisely.
Rely On God for Directions
These lines of advice focus on decision-making in general.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct your paths.
To live wisely, a person must defer to the Lord whenever his personal desires and inclinations contradict God’s perspective. The words trust and lean describe a person’s response to information and the sources of that information which he may consult in making a decision. One source is your own understanding. This is your own way of viewing things, your personal desires, your inclinations, your intuition, and even your common sense. While your own perspective may seem correct, you need to acknowledge or pay attention to what God thinks about the situation at hand.
Doing this requires you to know what he thinks. How can you know what he thinks? You should pay attention to what he says in Scripture. This approach will “direct” your paths. Direct is “to make something smooth, plain, or straight.” This indicates that the more you know about God’s perspective, as revealed in Scripture, the more obvious your decision will become. Confusing choices will become clear, though not they may not necessarily become easier.
When you determine what God’s Word says about the decision you are about to make, then you must choose to lean on his perspective with all your heart, turning away from your personal desires when they point in another direction. The phrase “with all your heart” describes more than a wholehearted commitment to God’s perspective in a single decision. It urges for wholehearted commitment to God’s perspective in every area and decision of your life.
Turn Away from Unhealthy Sins
This set of advice continues the previous guidance, providing an additional, noteworthy outcome for deferring to God’s direction.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh,
and strength to your bones.
To live wisely, a person must submit to God his own personal views about what is right and wrong. He should show such profound respect for God’s perspective that he turns away from any evil behavior. A person may rationalize that he or she is able to engage in certain degrees or kinds of evil, which is behavior that is morally improper and wrong. In contrast to this, a wise person will abandon such considerations. The result will be a positive effect on his physical health. Engaging in behavior that is morally inappropriate and associating with people who are morally misguided generally yields unwanted physical repercussions. However, behavior that is morally upright directly contributes and indirectly encourages a wholesome, healthy quality of life.
Use Resources God’s Way
This advice focuses specifically on making good choices with your material resources.
Honor the LORD with your possessions,
and with the firstfruits of all your increase;
So your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will overflow with new wine.
To live wisely, a person must “honor” the LORD with his material resources. Possessions are your present wealth or net worth, the money and the things that you currently possess. Increase, then, refers to all additional resources that will eventually come your way. As such, a wise person manages his resources in the present and in the future (as an ongoing habit of life) with God’s perspective in mind. Honor implies giving weight to something. In this case, it is giving greater weight to God himself. A wise person will learn to handle his finances and possessions according to God’s priorities. Just as morally upright decisions have a positive effect on your physical health, financially upright decisions have a positive effect on your material position.
Receive God’s Correction
This advice explains the proper response to the uncomfortable experience of God’s correction.
Do not despise the chastening of the LORD,
nor detest his correction;
for whom the LORD loves he corrects,
just as a father the son in whom he delights.
No man, apart from Jesus Christ, is so wise that he always makes the right decisions. No woman is so mature that she always follows God’s way. Therefore, even a wise person will make unwise choices. Knowing this, true wisdom acknowledges that God will intervene to correct this wrong behavior and these unwise choices whenever they occur. The mark of a wise person is not that he always makes the right decision. The mark of a wise person is that he accepts correction from God when he makes a wrong decision.
An unwise person refuses to acknowledge his error. Despise portrays the action of rejecting or refusing to receive correction. Detest portrays an emotion of repudiation and disgust for such correction. A wise person knows that God corrects his wrong behavior because he loves him as his child. This reminds us of the underlying theme of this section that true wisdom focuses on a close relationship to God, not just knowing how to make successful decisions. Not only should I live according to this outlook, but also God relates to me in the same way. He does not correct me merely because I am wrong. He does so even more because he loves me. That is precisely why I should live wisely, according to his divine perspective – not merely because it is the right thing to do, but because I love him with all of my heart.
Be grateful for God’s correction in your life. Embrace his wisdom to make the right decisions, because you love him. Then embrace his correction when you make the wrong decisions, because he loves you. This truth applies equally to your moral and material decisions. Are you trusting in the Lord in both these areas? Or are you leaning on your own understanding?
Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.