How to make the right decisions? Lean not on your own understanding

Many people want to do "the right thing," especially us believers in Christ as we should; but doing what is deemed "good" according to popular opinion could have disastrous results! For example, a couple could take in and sponsor the education of a family member who just lost his parents (their moms would kill them if they didn't!) but that family member could end up molesting their small children.

Even something as trivial as recommending a hair stylist to a friend could have disastrous outcomes - your expert stylist could be having a bad day and mistakenly cut off a huge chunk of your friend's precious hair! Her anger could cloud her judgment so much that she might even think you did it on purpose!

Proverbs 3:5-6 shows us how we can be protected from such at all times -

"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."

Trusting in our own understanding (our knowledge of good and evil) could end badly. This knowledge of good and evil is revealed through the law and "the letter kills." The good things we do in our own wisdom can kill just as fast as the bad.

Remember that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they died. Also, when the children of Israel refused to enter the promised land because they felt that they were like grasshoppers in the eyes of the giants in the land, those with the knowledge of good and evil among them died in the wilderness. Their commonsense told them that the right thing to do was retreat. It turned out that the giants that they were scared of were terrified of them because the Lord was with them.

Interestingly, Rahab the prostitute hid the Israelite spies from her own people, betraying them, but ended up being a part of the genealogy of our Lord Jesus. The woman with the issue of blood would have been stoned to death if a sharp Pharisee had caught her mingling with the crowd in her bid to touch the hem of our Saviour's garment in her unclean state but this is where she received her healing.

Believers, we are not under law but under grace. Here, the Lord is our Shepherd and He leads us on the path of righteousness; our knowledge of good and evil can never help us navigate this path. Llaw and grace can't mix.

Isaiah 35 says of the ransomed of the Lord that walk on His Highway of Holiness:

"Whoever walks the road, although a fool,

Shall not go astray."

Trust in Him to lead you with all your heart and do not depend on what your commonsense or the world tells you is the right thing to do. He will order your steps. He will tell you when you should lend money to people and when you should not. He will tell you when to buy a phone for your kids and when to take away the privilege. He will guide you to the right foods to eat so you can stay healthy.

When you rely on His righteousness and not your own ability to do good or keep the law, the thoughts of the Holy Spirit become your action. This is what it means to work out your own salvation (with salvation meaning deliverance from the power, pleasure and penalty of sin, from the molestation of enemies and being saved from death and hell) as it is written in Philippians 2:13-

"...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."

With Christ, you Live Right not by your own effort but by Christ who lives in you.

Believe Right and you will Live Right.