What is your truth?

One of the most dangerous mistakes we can make is assuming that because something feels right, it must be right.

We live in a culture that often treats personal feelings and individual judgment as the highest authority. “Follow your heart” is common advice. Trust yourself. Do what feels right for you. Live your truth.

At first glance, that sounds reasonable. After all, who knows your situation better than you do?

Yet Proverbs offers a poignant warning.

“There is a way that seems right to a man…”

Notice that it doesn’t say the way is obviously wrong. It doesn’t appear foolish or look dangerous. In fact, it seems right.

That’s what makes it so deceptive.

Several years ago, researchers discovered that pilots flying through clouds can sometimes become disoriented. Without visual references, their senses may tell them the aircraft is level when it’s actually banking into a turn. If they trust their feelings instead of their instruments, the results can be catastrophic.

The problem isn’t that they aren’t sincere.

The problem is that they’re wrong.

The same thing can happen spiritually. We can convince ourselves that a certain attitude, relationship, priority, or decision is justified because it makes sense to us. We can explain it. Defend it. Rationalize it. It seems right to us.

All the while, we’re relying on our own judgment alone.

People, today, talk about living and speaking their truth. As though truth can be different for you than for me or anyone else. We can have differing opinions, but there’s only one truth.

This proverb is not teaching that every personal desire is evil or that every decision we make is wrong. Rather, it reminds us of something we easily forget: we are not always the best judges of ourselves.

• Our desires can mislead us.
• Our emotions can cloud our thinking.
• Our perspective is limited and corrupted by sin.

That’s why God gives us His Word. It serves as a guide outside of ourselves. When our feelings and God’s wisdom conflict, Proverbs tells us to trust the Lord rather than our own instincts…or…If your truth disagrees with THE truth of God’s Word, your truth is a lie.

That isn’t always easy. Sometimes God’s way challenges what feels natural. It requires humility, repentance, or patience when we’d prefer something else.

But His wisdom sees farther and truer than ours.

And that’s good news, because left to ourselves, we would absolutely wander off course. In fact, this proverb tells us our way leads to death. Thankfully, God lovingly calls us back. He speaks through His Word. He places fellow believers in our lives.

Most importantly, He sent His Son to rescue us from the deadly paths we choose and to lead us into life. In fact, the Bible tells us Jesus, who is the Word made flesh, is the way, the truth, and the life. Where our way and our truth leads to death, God’s way and God’s truth, Jesus, is life.

So today, when you’re making decisions, rather than asking, “What feels right?”

Ask a deeper and better question:

“What does God say?”

Let’s pray…

Heavenly Father,

I confess that I often trust my own judgment more than I trust Your wisdom. Forgive me for the times I have followed my own way instead of Yours. Help me to recognize when my feelings, desires, or assumptions are leading me astray. Give me humility to listen to Your Word and courage to follow where You lead. Guide my steps today, and keep me on the path that leads to life through Jesus Christ.

Amen.

As part of your devotion time, I encourage you to also pray for at least some of the following:

• Your family
• Your local church
• Your pastor
• Some of your fellow church members
• The people on your B.L.E.S.S. list
• Your country and her leaders
• Your community

After praying for these people, you may want to finish your devotion time with the Lord’s Prayer…

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. They will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and every. Amen.