Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool,
but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. – Proverbs 28:26
How many times have you watched a movie or TV show and someone is caught in a dilemma. The tension of the story includes the difficult decisions that character has to make. The inevitable advice given will be, “Just follow your heart.” It is conventional thinking under the sun. Do what you feel best. It is a life lived by our own subjective standards of what we feel good about. There is no objective standard for decision making.
But Proverbs teaches us that whoever trusts in his heart is a fool. Let’s dig into this a bit. The word translated “mind” here is most often translated “heart.” In this passage, the fool is KESIL, the dull and obstinate one who makes wrong decisions.
Applying the principles of understanding Proverbs, we have two antithetical parallel propositions. “Whoever trusts in his own mind (heart)” is antithetical to “he who walks in wisdom.” These two are opposites.
The contrasting results are the first is a fool and makes wrong decisions while the second is delivered from his dilemmas.
So, when it comes to decision making, don’t trust in your own mind or heart to make good decisions (unless it is saturated with the word of God). The wise position is to fear the Lord and look to Scripture for wisdom and direction in making your decisions. There is objective truth from which to reason to a wise conclusion.
