by Andy Stanley
Is it too late to begin viewing today through the lens of tomorrow? I don’t think so. Chances are, you’ve got plenty of tomorrows left.
So that settles it, right? From now on you will gauge the appropriateness of every option by your hopes and dreams for tomorrow. Every time there is a decision to make, you will reflexively stop and ask, “In light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?” And then you will do it!
End of story. No need to finish this book.
Maybe Not
It’s not that simple, is it? Or is it? Seems strange that we would digest this information and then turn right around and resist the obvious.
Isn’t it ironic that at this very moment you are seriously contemplating a decision that has the potential to chip away at your preferred future, and yet you are leaning hard in that direction, rehearsing the same old worn-out excuses? You know which ones I’m talking about. The ones you’ve been using since high school. The ones that cleared the way for you to do things you now wish you hadn’t. Things you have never shared with your spouse. Things you hope your children never discover. Decisions you are ashamed of … choices that, to this day, cast a shadow over the good things that have come your way. Options that, if avoided, would have paved the way for your dreams to come true.
Sorry to be so hard on you. It’s just that I know my own tendency to deny this truth in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As I said earlier, it’s easy to see how this principle has played out in the lives of others while ignoring its relevance in our own lives. We are a people proficient in the art of self-deception.
So let’s get specific. In light of where you want to be financially in ten years, what’s the wise thing to do right now? What do you need to start or stop doing financially?
If you are single, in hopes of one day finding the man or woman of your dreams, what is the wise way to conduct your relationships now? What are you doing that has the potential to rob you of your preferred future? What do you want to tell your future spouse about your past relationships? Live accordingly. If you are married and your dream is to finish life together with your spouse, what options do you need to take off the table? What’s out there that could steal your dream? What precautions need to be taken? What’s the wise thing to do relationally?
In light of how you envision your relationship with your children when they’re teenagers or in college or married with children of their own, what is the wise thing to do now? What practices would you be wise to incorporate now into your parenting repertoire? Where do you need to reprioritize?
It would be nice if we could go back and redo adolescence. Oh, and maybe drop in and redo some chapters from our twenties and thirties. But, of course, we can’t. We only get one shot at every season of life. Whether or not we learned anything becomes evident in the seasons that follow.
So what have you learned? More to the point, are you willing to face up to God’s will for your life? Are you ready to acknowledge what you know in your heart is true? Are you prepared to ask our question and then to follow through? Take a giant step toward protecting your future. In light of your future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?
Where Does It Hurt?
For just a moment, let’s pretend that no one, including God, can read your mind. Better yet, let’s imagine that five minutes from now you will be able to erase your next five minutes’ worth of thoughts. In other words, let’s create some space for unfiltered thinking. You will not be accountable to anyone, including yourself, for the thoughts you are about to entertain.
If you can go with this for just a minute, you will be free to admit to yourself anything you want without feeling like you have to do anything about it. Because in five minutes, you will be able to erase any incriminating thoughts that you allow yourself to think. Are you with me?
Okay, let’s do a little probing. Remember, you are free to admit to yourself anything you want. No action will be required.
As you evaluate where you are financially, relationally, morally, professionally, and spiritually, what would you do differently in each of these areas if you were to embrace our question? In light of your past experience, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do financially? Relationally? Morally? Professionally? Spiritually?
Again, you don’t have to act on your answers. Just take a moment to be painfully honest with yourself. What would you do differently in each of these areas if you were to evaluate each component of your life through the lens of this question?
Remember, you’re not asking this question for anybody but yourself. What’s the wise thing for me to do? Resist the temptation to hide behind broad generalities and cultural norms. What is the wise thing for you to do? You are a unique blend of past experiences, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams. Wisdom allows you to customize the decision-making process to your specific professional, financial, and relational dimensions. Don’t miss this opportunity.
Think about how different your life would be now if you had been processing your options this way from the beginning. Imagine how different your life might look a year from now if you embraced our question from this point forward.
Okay, back to the real world. No need to feel guilty about what you just admitted to yourself but don’t intend to do anything about. We’ve got several more chapters to wear down your resistance.
That last exercise hurt a little, huh? I’m sorry. But look, we all know that sometimes a little pain is good. Actually, maybe it didn’t hurt so much as make you sad. You sure wish you could go back and do things differently. But what comes next could help moving forward. Because what I’m asking you to do now is to just start practicing asking yourself that question: If I were a wise man or wise woman, in light of my past experience, my current circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams, what’s the wise thing to do?
I’m asking you to do this because you owe it to yourself to at least be aware of the answer. That’s all we’re aiming for at this point—self-awareness. You see, asking that question and recognizing an answer will probably lead to a string of thoughts. You may find yourself thinking, I can see the wise thing to do here, but I don’t want to do it. That’s a huge step forward in self-awareness. You’ve just learned something extremely valuable about yourself. The insight you just gained might even be this: I don’t have my own best interests in mind. If that’s the case, you definitely want to know it.
This will likely trigger more questions: If I don’t have my best interests in mind, who does? And where’s that going to lead? But, like I said, just start getting in the habit throughout your day, decision by decision, of calling our question to mind: What’s the wise thing for me to do here?
The Wise and the Not-So-Wise
There’s one person in the Bible that we don’t have to wonder if about; he was a wise man, said to be the wisest man who ever lived, so much so that he wrote the Bible’s book of Proverbs. His name was Solomon, a name that even sounds wise, huh? In the pages of Proverbs, King Solomon portrayed four different kinds of people. Foremost among them, he said, are the wise, the people who look at the past, the present, and the future and make the best decisions.
But wise man that he was, Solomon didn’t stop there. He also described three other categories, three alternatives to being wise and living wisely. Solomon’s proverb is showing us that when we walk away from wisdom, we walk toward something else. If we don’t intentionally opt for wisdom, then we accidentally opt for one of those other three things. It’s as if Solomon was saying, “As you’re learning what wisdom looks like, let me also show you what it clearly doesn’t look like.”
So let’s take a close look at the unwise. But I may as well warn you; what Solomon said here, what we’re about to explore, is offensive. It just might make you angry. So bear with me and be willing at least to listen as Solomon speaks to us across the centuries. You owe it to yourself.
The Simple
Let’s start with the character Solomon described as simple. The reason such people are unwise is not that they’re against wisdom, but that they just haven’t lived long enough to know better. They’re simply too young. The simple are the naive, the clueless. They’re not bad; they’re not evil; they’re not dumb. They’re not trying to ruin their lives. They just lack something older people have: experience.
Solomon tells us a fascinating story, beginning in Proverbs 7:6, about a young man convinced he’s heading for a good time. But as we read about his situation, that ominous music from Jaws starts playing in the background. With each step he takes, you want to reach out, grab his arm, and yell Stop! Solomon described him as “like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose … like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life” (7:22–23).
Being young and youthful is a beautiful experience. It can also be a dangerous experience because, well, you’re young and youthful. And your tendency, when someone a little older tries to warn you of dangers ahead, is to say, “Nah, I’ve got this. Nothing’s gonna happen!” But Solomon shows us that actually a lot can happen and your life can change tracks in a click. And suddenly you find yourself traveling in a direction you never in your simple mind intended.
I realize this sounds like Solomon and I are Debby Downers on being young. We’re not. If you’re young, here’s the amazing thing. Even though you lack experience, you have an opportunity the rest of us can only wish for, an advantage we’d love to have. You can enjoy the benefits of youth and the benefits of wisdom, all at the same time. The fact that you’re simple and a bit clueless and naive (I warned you, this is offensive) does not have to derail your life. You do not have to learn everything the hard way.
You can have both. You can have your youth, and you can have wisdom. But you’ll have to seek wisdom. It won’t come naturally. You’ll have to ask for it, and you’ll have to learn to ask. It’s a practice, a process. You’ll have to stop and think at every invitation, every opportunity, every decision, Okay, if I was a wise young man or woman, what would be the wise thing for me to do? In light of my past experience (which isn’t much)… in light of my current circumstances (yes it’s true, I’m very young)… and in light of my future hopes and dreams (which mean so much to me)…
The Fool
Our wise man Solomon apparently valued candor. He didn’t pull any punches. He called his next character a fool. The difference between the simple person and the fool is that the fool knows his choices are unwise. He knows from experience. But the fool just doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a ________ (fill in the blank with whatever word you wisely think he’d use). He might also add, “It’s my life, and it’s none of your ________ business.”
Proverbs gives us a visual for the fool that’s just hard to get out of your head: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” (Proverbs 26:11). I told you, he doesn’t pull punches. If there’s an area in your life where you tell yourself, “I know this is wrong, but I’m going to do it anyway, and probably repeat it,” Solomon would answer, “In that area of your life, you’re a fool.”
And while time is the cure for the simple person, the cure for the fool isn’t so easy. The fool has to learn the hard way. The cure is always tragedy. And like all tragedies, it never happens in a vacuum. The fool keeps saying, “It’s my life, I can do what I want. It’s my body, my time, my money, and this doesn’t affect other people. I’m not hurting anyone.” Sounds like a fool, huh?
His foolishness has blinded him to his selfishness. Solomon said it well, “A companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20). The fool’s companion—the spouse, the parents, the brother or sister, the employee, the children, the friend—cannot escape harm from the fool’s wrong choices. The tragedy of being a fool is that eventually you’ll inflict harm upon someone else. There’s always collateral damage. And while the fool may protest all day long, “Well, that wasn’t my intention,” the reality is, No, but you’ve still hurt that person.
The Mocker
In a sense, Solomon is giving us the good (the simple), the bad (the fool), and the ugly (the mocker). And this last category is really ugly.
The mocker—or in some translations, the scoffer—is the fool on steroids. It’s the man or woman who not only doesn’t care about the difference between right and wrong, wise and unwise, but is also constantly mocking or scoffing at other people who pursue what’s right and what’s wise.
Mockers are cynical, critical, condescending, and controlling. You always feel off balance around them. You never know where you stand. They always try to come across as the smartest person in the room, and they use that supposed knowledge to try to dominate and manipulate their world and their relationships.
Look, if you’re married to somebody like this, or you work for somebody like this, I’m very sorry. Because Solomon said, “Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults; whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse. Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you” (Proverbs 9:7–8). Bottom line? You can’t win with them. They just don’t listen. They leverage whatever intellect they think they have, and they pounce on you. Whether it’s their insecurity or just pure arrogance or something from their past, they just have to control the situation through their cynicism and criticism. They’re almost impossible to have a relationship with. They’re unwise, and often border on inhuman.
So there you go: the wise and the unwise as presented by the always-wise Solomon. If you recognized one or more of your past choices as belonging in one of the not-so-wise categories, you’ve gained an additional level of self-awareness, perhaps enough to consider heading in a different direction. If so, that’s where your new habit comes into play: watching yourself in each and every situation and asking, “What is the wise thing to do?”
At some point in their lives, the simple, the fool, and even the mocker will sense the need for help in decision making. They’ll know they need wisdom. But the larger question then is, Will they even be able to recognize it? Will you?
Remember that point I raised in the conclusion of the last chapter about not being able to recognize the need for wisdom? It has to be raised because it’s part of the hard work of asking the vital question, What’s the wise thing to do? The problem, as we learn from Solomon, is that you can get stuck in one of those unwise categories for so long that you risk becoming a person who “seeks wisdom and finds none” (Proverbs 14:6). At that point you’ve done permanent damage to your life, your relationships, and, in some cases, your soul. You’ve become a person who cannot receive correction. Instead of becoming as hard as nails (sometimes necessary in this life), you’ve become a nail (usually only responsive to the blunt force of a hammer). That kind of situation is almost hopeless.
Almost.
Come and Get It
I find it interesting that at the very beginning of the book of Proverbs, Solomon pictures wisdom as a woman who’s walking through the streets of a town calling out, “Who wants wisdom? Come and get it!” It’s tempting to jump ahead here, but you really need to meet this woman:
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech: “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?” (1:20–22)
Two words are at the heart of this speech: How long? But those two words pulse out into a phrase we all know too well: Aren’t you tired? Ask anybody these days how he’s doing, and you’re almost sure to get a common response: I’m tired. Many of us have something in our lives that has just gone on too long. We’re ready for some relief, but we’re not sure things can change.
Into this scenario “Wisdom” comes walking down the street and addresses the simple: “Aren’t you tired of learning everything the hard way?” Then she addresses the mocker: “Aren’t you tired of yet another failed relationship with someone you care for?�
�� Then the fool: “Aren’t you tired of another year looking just like the year before with the same problems, same hang-ups, same dashed hopes?” Again, this feels almost hopeless.
Almost.
Listen as Wisdom declares what must be done:
Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. (1:23)
Repent. Turn from going one direction and go in another. That’s where the hope lies, in the turning. But as you can see, it’s an active hope; there’s an action necessary for it to be realized.
But whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm. (1:33)
“Come on,” Wisdom says, “I’m giving you one more opportunity. I’m giving you one more chance. I’m calling, calling, calling … Listen to me! And whoever hears me will find the good way of security and peace and protection. There’s still hope.”
So you see, that’s why we ask the question: In light of my past experience, in light of my current circumstances, in light of my future hopes and dreams—regardless of where that leads—if I was wise, what would I do?
If you’re a mocker, you have to start admitting you’re not the smartest person in the room.
If you’re a fool, you’ve got to start caring, because it’s not just about you. It’s about everybody who loves you and depends on you.
If you’re young and simple—and there’s nothing wrong with that—you have the opportunity of a lifetime. You can have both. You can have both youth and wisdom, but you won’t get there by yourself. You’ve got to ask for it. Wisdom is available. It’s there for us.
But here’s the reality. And it breaks my heart when I see it or hear it, which happens all too often. Sometimes people stay away from wisdom for so long that when they finally decide they want to fix their lives, they can’t. Some things are too broken to be repaired in this life, and I emphasize in this life. God will restore all things, make all things new in his time, but you may never have the relationship with your wife you wanted. You may never see that dream come to pass. You may not get what you want, not in this life.