My Way or the Highway

“My way or the Highway” is a popular way to describe football coaches, CEOs, or some other authoritarian leader. As long as we are not the ones on the end of the highway part, we often think this is the way to make decisions and to provide leadership.

The problem is that “my way” often is just that. It is all about the person–dictatorial, uncaring, and actually not very wise.

Think of what the Bible says about this. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Do we really want to be part of the “God opposes the proud?”  It would be better to be on the highway part of a proud, authoritarian personality.

Yesterday morning I spent time memorizing and meditating about Proverbs 28:26. I have read this verse before, but yesterday I understood it like never before. Read this slowly and notice what it really says. Like Hebrew poetry generally and the Proverbs in particular, it is made up of two parts. In this case the parts are opposites, the correct Hebrew description is antithetical parallelism.

“Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” That is about as straight forward look at life as you can get.

We get two choices. Which will you choose? In the first, you receive whatever your own mind can come up with. Most people live this way. They make decisions out of their limited education or limited experience. They know what they want to do, and they do it. Government, educational institutions, physicians, pastors, and many others make their choices this way. We are now reaping the consequences of our own way of thinking.

Can the Scripture be any more plain? “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool.”

That phrase describes most of my decisions. I make up my mind what I want to do, and I do it.

That is to live and act like a fool. I receive out of it what I put in it–which is not very much.

But the second part is just as plain. “But he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.”

I want to be delivered. Another translation says the the person who walks in wisdom will be safe.

In Proverbs, wisdom takes on the characteristics of a person, particularly in Proverbs 8. I’ve always had trouble understanding what that meant.

The following seems to be the idea.

Wisdom comes only from God. We have minds, and we should use them but it should be in conjunction with God and His leadership and wisdom. Since wisdom is only from God, it is presented as a person.

James described the wisdom that comes from above (that is, from God). That kind of wisdom is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17). Wouldn’t you really rather have those outcomes?

John Kincaid has pointed out that what you find in Godly wisdom is so similar to the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Of course it is. It comes from God himself.

How tragic that those who have the Holy Spirit trust in their own minds. They live and act as fools.

But–those who walk in God’s wisdom will be safe.

I choose to be safe in the arms of God. I hope you do, too.

Each day I write a devotional for use by pastors and Christians in general. If you would like to receive my free daily devotionals in your inbox each morning, you can sign up below.


 

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4 Responses

  1. Oh Teacher what a wonderful message. The way I describe this to people is, “before I ever heard the gospel message (for me at age 35) I had in my head what I call ‘the gospel of Brenda’ — essentially, be nice don’t kill anybody and you will go to heaven when you die, WRONG!! That is nowhere near what the bible says n God makes those rules and I don’t!

    So, if we are warming pews every Sunday, but not having out minds renewed by personal study, growth and application, we still have in our heads ‘the gospel of _______’
    It simply cannot all be accomplished in one hour every Sunday morning. I hunger because I am thankful, and appreciative, and forgiven. It is a marvelous gift we have received and not to be trifled with. Thanks for reading.

  2. Great word Dr. B. Every time I see the word “fool” in the scripture, I go back to Psalm 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” When we act foolishly, like a fool, we are saying in our hearts, ” I am the master of my soul and I will exercise my will,” instead of, as you said, acknowledging our heavenly Father who lives in us through His Holy Spirit who guides us, teaches us, convicts us, and brings to our remembrance the words of Christ to us. When we tune in and follow Him, we acknowledge His presence in us and authority over us and act in obedience to Him and under His guidance.. When we act foolishly and do only what we want, we really say in our hearts, “You’re not my God and You can’t tell me what to do. I’ll do it my way.” We become the god in whom we trust and become the fool.

  3. Waylon
    I’m so thankful for these blogs. I may not comment on all but I look forward to them for encouragement and instruction. May God Bless and Strengthen you in this work…..

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