Making Decisions, Trusting God and Casting Lots

This series of wisdom statements in Proverbs 16 can help you to navigate the many decisions you make in life, big and small.

• A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
• He who heeds the word wisely will find good, and whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he. (Proverbs 16:20)
• The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. (Proverbs 16:33)

Here are some lessons you can draw from what these statements teach us.

Your life is a long chain of individual choices.

Deep inside of you, in your heart, is a place that no one can see but God and yourself. And there you are making choices all the time. You are making big choices (like what career path to pursue and where to live), and you are making little choices (like which cereal to eat for breakfast and which pair of shoes to wear.) You are making choices like this all the time. You’ve been making choices like this today, from the moment you woke up until now. Truly, there is a sense in which your life is a long chain of individual choices.

Your choices require careful attention.

Since your choices affect the quality and outcome of your life, both along the way and in the end, then you need to make your choices in a responsible manner. Proverbs 16:9 emphasizes this when it says, “A man’s heart plans his way.”

The word plan is an accounting term, portraying concepts such as a person sitting down to prepare his taxes. This person looks carefully at receipts, earned interest statements, W-2s, tax forms and so forth. He wants to want to file his taxes correctly. The right choices will make the difference between getting money back, owing a lot of money, or even being audited.

One Bible dictionary explains this word as “thinking in a detailed, logical manner, considering various factors, which has some focus on the formulation of an opinion.”¹

So, as you make decisions, it is very important to give careful attention to making the right choice. First, you should consider what the Bible says about the kind of decision you are about to make. Then you should consider possible outcomes, effects on other people, good timing, and so on. That’s why Proverbs 16:20 teaches you to make choices in a skillful and attentive manner, not acting on a whim or in a quick and hasty way.

Some choices require you to take a chance.

This may sound odd to you, but it’s true. After you give thought to a decision you will make, you will sometimes realize that you are facing two or more options that either (1) appear to be equal in value or (2) are impossible to differentiate or prioritize. If that is truly the case, then you need to learn how to make a choice and move on. That is what the practice of “casting lots” in the Bible seems to refer to (Proverbs 16:33).

In biblical times, this practiced may have involved picking sticks of different sizes, pulling numbers out of a bowl or bunched-up robe, or throwing down assorted pieces of pottery with different numbers on them. Whatever the case, it was a reasonable method for making objective choices in cases of apparently equal options.

Perhaps you feel that, like rolling dice, this is not a Christian thing to do. After all, the Roman soldiers cast lots to decide who would get to keep the robe that Jesus had worn before he was crucified (Matt. 27:35).

But the Old Testament teaches that this was a good and respectable way to settle disputes when both parties had valid arguments. Proverbs 18:18 wisely observes, “Casting lots causes contentions to cease” (Prov 18:18). And Numbers 26:55 tells us that this was the method Joshua employed to decide which of the twelve tribes of Israel would settle in the different areas of land God would assign to them.

You might object by saying, “That’s okay, but those are Old Testament examples, and this isn’t a good thing to do today in the New Testament era. But I would disagree about this because of Acts 1:26, which reports that “they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.”The early church chose the man who would replace Judas Iscariot as the twelfth apostle of the church by – casting lots. We should note, of course, that they had prayed about this first decision first, considered individual qualifications, and narrowed their options down to two men. But both men appeared to be equally viable options, and so lots became the only reasonable way to make a final selection.

The Lord determines what will happen.

In all of this, one thing is clear. The Lord directs your steps and the Lord determines the outcome when you “cast lots.” This is true when you make biblical choices based upon prayer and careful research, and this is true when you do this but still need to make an either-or decision.

The word directs means something like this: to determine, to prepare, to make or design a product by carefully fashioning and crafting it. Ultimately, decisions that you make – trusting in the Lord – whether based on wise, careful thinking or casting lots prudently, you can rest easy knowing that God ultimately will be fashioning and laying out your steps. Even the decisions that you are faced with are a part of the “way” or “road” that he is preparing for you, as a master craftsman carves out a masterpiece. Knowing this, you should be encouraged that your life is not as random, haphazard and fragile as it may seem. God is working on your path more than you are, crafting your long chain of choices.

Therefore, every choice requires you to trust in the Lord.

Do your research. Study your Bible. Pray for wisdom and direction. And maybe cast lots. But in the end, trust the Lord. Just trust the Lord (Prov 16:20). In other words, make up your mind. You must make a decision, so make the best one you know how and trust the Lord. He is laying out your road before you, just take the steps you know to take. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (Prov 3:5-6).

Sometimes you make the best choices you know how to make, and things seem to go from bad to worse, or you discover that you need to change your plans. When this happens, don’t look back and second-guess your decisions. Sometimes the right decision leads you into bigger challenges and more difficulties. Other times your choices teach you how to make better choices in the future. But in all of this, the Lord is preparing your way. You are weaving together the chain of choices that make up your life. But wait – God is fashioning the chain before you. How amazing is that?

Only then will you continue to be happy.

This is so important. You see, only the person who trusts the Lord – leaning on the good and trustworthy character of God – like a child leans on the arms of a parent will be happy in life. The man or woman, boy or girl who makes choices, then continues to reevaluate them, continues to second-guess and look back. This person fails to experience true rest and fails to enjoy the peace and joy that the life of following God makes possible.

Let those who do not know your Savior fret and worry about the choices they make. But if you are a child of God, then do not worry. Make wise, biblical, prayerful choices. Then “cast lots” and take a chance when you must. But whatever you do, trust the Lord in all your choices. Only then will you be happy indeed.

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Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.

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1. James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997). [↩]