What Merely Seems

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

I don’t think there’s a gal alive who can’t relate to that and who wouldn’t admit to changing her mind after discovering how foolish she’d been! We’ve all done it; fallen for the crazy new diet that worked wonders for a friend while we just kept gaining. We’ve trusted that highly recommended hair stylist who charged a fortune only to leave us looking like someone else on a bad hair day. How about those totally cute shoes we thought were so hot but left us blistered and limping for days? We’ve “gone with our gut” in spite of the experiences and wisdoms of others. Her less than respectable ex-boyfriend will be “different with us” and the butcher knife he takes to our self-esteem comes with great surprise. We eat what we want in spite of what the nutritionists advise and then we wonder why we’re chubby or have high cholesterol. We don’t notice the weeds planted in the gardens of our hearts until they fail to fully blossom. Not examples of actual death, per se, but you get my drift; things that seemed right yet give new meaning to the phrase “What was I thinking?!”

Ways that seem right, but in the end lead to death. Some definitions of death are: “the end of life, destruction, a cause or occasion of death” and (the worst), “the loss or absence of spiritual life.” If we knew (not thought) ahead of time that something would lead to any one of those, would we still choose it? If we truly believed that we would suffer the loss or absence of spiritual life, would we alter our paths? We hope we’d say no and yes to those questions, yet we often reverse the order of those answers, time and time again. In spite of how temporary the benefits may be, we risk a definition of death, the most detrimental of all, being the loss of spiritual life.

Consequences of what seemed right, when they catch up with us, seem unfair and random. Lack of wisdom is always hard for the foolish to detect. Yet God in His infinite goodness, warns us. His word is full of loving guidance on how to live the life He’s planned for us, and how to avoid that which will keep us from it. Why do we gamble on the fickle, at best, ways of the world while we mistrust the word of God, which is the same yesterday, today and always, and has never been disproven? Why do we choose that which brings death over the word that brings life?

The way that seems right to a man, does not appear to be wrong until the consequences set in and we realize what’s dying in us or around us. Consequences of sin will wound us deeply, but receiving the grace of God which redeems and restores, can heal us and make all things new. If we truly seek Him, He’ll create in us a right heart with the wisdom to discern what merely seems.