On Paths and Pondering

I love a good ponder. Whether it’s eyes up to the midnight sky, gulping down drafts of galaxy from the clear and cloudless evenings, or pen-planting rows of thought along my journal, I love thinking and reflecting and meditating. When I first began writing as a craft, I started a blog titled “Prone to Wonder.” Ah, what a ragamuffin soul, (if I don’t say so myself).

But there are risks to the hobby of introspection. Thinking about things is good in principle, but thinking about thinking can quickly bleed into psychological scab-picking. In the worst moments, to spelunk too far down the cavern of introspection can erode one’s epistemological confidence entirely. (Thankfully, a friend has helped us by thinking out loud on the subject.)

So at the risk of scratching an itch better left alone, I’d like to think a little about our thinking. My life story, boiled down to a haiku for convenience, will serve as our outline:

Once, I overthought

Then, I was underthinking

Better now, I think

Two Scripture truths serve well as shoes to clod our feet to plod the path of wisdom. The first extols the prescience of providence, the other upholds the precedent of prudence. They are both proverbs.

Here is the first.

Better than Overthinking

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths. (Prov 3:5–6)

I love this passage. Practically, it means “going Godward,” asking the Lord for help, deciding in relation to the divine. Philosophically, it means epistemological humility and contentment. I cannot know everything, so I cannot understand everything. But I can know God truly, and understand him truly, so I can trust him with what I don’t know—and with what I do. Spiritually, these lines have a gospel shape. They prepare me to cling to God and his path, even when he takes a different direction than I’d expect. Truly, his thoughts are not ours, and his ways are higher: he is merciful to sinners (see Isa 55:6–9).

I needed this wisdom when I was a solipsistic college student obsessed with my own development, preoccupied with measuring spiritual progression, and always casting my imagination into postulations about the future. When I was incessantly “prone to wonder” about future jobs, future cities, future family, I needed to be told,

“Stop overthinking everything. You won’t know till you get there, and then you will, but not before. Trust in the Lord. Honor him, and get on with it.”

That’s a good word. Especially for a college student.

And … if the only way you correct the habit of overthinking is by thinking less, you’ll be riding the bike of life lacking one pedal. Proverbial wisdom speaks clearest in conversation, and the wisdom of Proverbs is in the whole picture. So we need another text to foil this one lest we pedal over the precipice of underthinking.

Better than Underthinking

By itself, the single-pedal of Proverbs 3:5–6 could take us too far into the inscrutability of God’s wisdom. We might, from the joy of our emancipation from ego, reject all reflection. Dash those dastardly diversions of decision-making, I’m living by faith henceforth! So, “lean not on your own understanding” translates to “lean not on any understanding.” But this is only a half-step toward spiritual adulthood.

This is not merely a potential overreaction to overthinking. It is an entire mood that dominates Christian communities, masquerading as maturity while perpetuating the opposite. So it is a specific danger for the student escaping self-centeredness, but it is an effective danger because the mindset is confirmed by believers who are ostensibly more mature.

Here is the subtle logic. Some passages contrast faith with sight (e.g., 2 Cor 5:7). If faith is inverse to sight, I want less sight, because it means more faith. Less reasoning, more trusting. Exercise judgment, to think too hard or long or thoroughly about your decisions, and you’re probably living by your own wisdom and not the Lord’s.

Case study: How do you go about an important decision—where to go to church, what job to take, where to move, who to marry? When I was interviewing for pastoral positions toward the end of seminary, every step after every interview was always, “Take some time to pray about it.”

Now, of course I am not against praying. But I am against thoughtless prayer, and so were Jesus (Matt 6:7–8) and Paul (1 Cor 14:15). It is interesting that no one ever explicitly says what we expect to get out of praying about it. What are we looking for when we pray about a big decision? This is an important question. How do we know we have prayed enough, or if we have prayed in the right way? Are we seeking a word from the Lord? A sign? A providential intervention? Are we seeking a subjective sense of peace?

Perhaps there is a spectrum of motivations in prayer, but at the end of that spectrum, one heart basically says, “I need you Lord to show me which path to take; reveal your hidden will so I can pursue it.” The other says, “I need you Lord to help me walk on the path wisely; show me where I am out of step with your will as it is revealed in Scripture.”

At this point, it will be helpful to add that second proverbial pedal. How can we avoid the danger of underthought, which masquerades as faith? We need to be mature in our thinking, and to make a practice of pondering our path.

Mature in our Thinking

Let your eyes look directly forward,

and your gaze be straight before you.

Ponder the path of your feet;

then all your ways will be sure.

Do not swerve to the right or to the left;

turn your foot away from evil. (Pr 4:25–27)

“Ponder.” Or, “make level” (per the Hebrew). When you need to make big decisions, you need to trust the providential provision of God, per Proverbs 3:5–6. And you need to use your noggin, per Proverbs 4:25–27. You need to think of yourself less, but not think less, yourself.

God intends you to grow in your faith. Growing in faith does not mean growing in blindness. It means seeing more clearly the path of wisdom (Prov 4:11). It means looking carefully at how we walk (Eph 5:15–16). It means being transformed by the renewing of our rational brains, so we can test and evaluate and discern and decide to the glory of God (Rom 12:2). Some siblings of Christ think of faith as a blind leap devoid of reason—therefore, growth in faith means I can leap farther with eyes shut tighter. But the Lord wants you to be like him, and he is perfectly thoughtful (see again Isa 55:8–9). He wants you to engage your reasoning and your wisdom more as you get older, not less!

We seek to understand God’s understanding, and to obediently stand under it. We seek to think as he thinks and to walk as he walks.

I think this is what James was getting at in his letter. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” (James 1:5) What will be given? The answer? No. Wisdom. God is not the spiritual equivalent of an A.I. or an ancient oracle. Prudence is not the product of prayer-shaped “prompts.” It comes from asking God in faith. What does faith look like? Well, according to James, it looks like doing. So what does the faith-filled prayer for wisdom look like? It looks like getting wisdom:

“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,

and whatever you get, get insight.” Pr 4:7.

Ask for it and then get it. Meaning, purchase it. Buy it. Procure it. Seize hold of it. Prize it enough to pursue it and to pay for it.

That’s maturity. Biblical wisdom, Christian maturity, does not look increasingly like an undisciplined student asking to see the answer sheet so he can copy and paste. It looks like learning to think like the teacher. It looks like believing God will give us wisdom because he has given us wisdom, and it looks like pursuing that wisdom while trusting we’ll find it. Faith believes that wisdom really is out there, not unlocked by a prayer that rubs the genie’s bottle, but awaiting discovery through assiduous attention to God’s Word and world. So faith-filled maturity, faith-filled “asking” may look less like praying aimlessly and endlessly in search of a subjective impression, and more like reading some wise books, listening to insightful podcasts, studying the Scripture in more depth, seeking the opinions of godly church members, all while praying in faith that God will guide—and then making the best decision we can in the context we’re given.