4 Biblical Ways to Avoid Bad Decisions | Proverbs 16

How can you avoid bad decisions when facing choices about your family, finances, work, relationships, and future? Good planning matters, but wise decisions require more than trusting your feelings, resources, or understanding.

In this message from Proverbs 16, Pastor Chris Teien shares four biblical ways to avoid bad decisions: surrender your plans to God, trust His sovereign purposes, value His wisdom above worldly success, and follow His ways every day. You can plan carefully while trusting God to direct your steps, examine your motives, provide what you need, and accomplish His purposes even when life does not unfold as expected.

You’ll Discover:

•  Why good planning must begin with surrender to God 
•  How prayer and wise counsel can protect you from impulsive decisions 
•  Why the path that seems right is not always the right path 
•  How pride, worldly success, and personal feelings can mislead you 
•  How patience, humility, and self-control lead to wiser choices 
•  How to trust God when your plans unexpectedly change 

In This Message

1. Surrender Your Plans to God

Planning is wise, but every plan should be surrendered to the Lord. Through personal stories about financial decisions, a dangerous damaged tree, and other everyday choices, Pastor Chris demonstrates the importance of seeking God in prayer, examining our motives, and asking for wise counsel instead of relying only on ourselves. (Proverbs 16:1–3; Proverbs 3:5–6; Proverbs 21:5; Nehemiah)

1. Trust God’s Sovereign Purposes

God is working out His purposes even when we cannot understand His timing or see how everything will turn out. Joseph’s life demonstrates how God can use suffering, setbacks, and the sinful actions of others to accomplish something good. We make plans, but the Lord ultimately directs our steps. (Proverbs 16:4–9; Genesis 50:20; Romans 5:8)

1. Value God’s Wisdom Above Worldly Success

The world measures success by wealth, possessions, recognition, and status, but God values wisdom, humility, integrity, and faithful obedience. Wisdom is worth more than gold, pride leads to destruction, and true success comes from pursuing God’s purposes rather than worldly approval. (Proverbs 16:16–20; Daniel 4)

1. Follow God’s Ways Every Day

God’s wisdom should shape our words, relationships, choices, and character. The path that seems right can lead to destruction, so we must trust God’s Word above our feelings. Kind speech, patience, humility, integrity, and self-control help protect us from foolish and harmful decisions. (Proverbs 16:21–33; Colossians 4:6)

Takeaway

Are you trusting God more than yourself? Bring your decisions and plans before the Lord in prayer. Examine your motives, seek wisdom from God’s Word and trusted believers, and move forward in obedience. Plan carefully, but trust God with both the direction and the results.

Illustrations

•  Making a financial decision without prayer after Pastor Chris’s wife was placed on bed rest during pregnancy 
•  Asking a professional arborist for help rather than taking unnecessary risks with a damaged tree 
•  A GPS rerouting around a closed road as a picture of God’s guidance when plans unexpectedly change 
•  Joseph’s life demonstrating how God can work through suffering to accomplish His purposes 
•  Praying as a family before deciding where to attend Bible college 
•  Investing in a quality Bible as an example of valuing eternal wisdom above temporary pleasures 

Key Quotes

“Are you trusting God more than yourself?”

“Planning is good. The Bible is for planning.”

“God examines your motives.”

“How much better to get wisdom than gold.”

“Pride always brings us low, and humility lifts our eyes up to God.”

“Trusting God more than yourself means believing God’s Word over your own feelings.”

Search Topics

Proverbs 16, four biblical ways to avoid bad decisions, how to avoid bad decisions, biblical decision-making, Christian decision-making, trusting God with your decisions, how to seek God’s direction, making wise decisions, commit your plans to the Lord, God’s will, surrendering your plans to God, seeking wise counsel, godly wisdom, humility, pride, patience, self-control, God’s sovereignty, Christian living, faith, obedience, Jesus Christ, Romans 5:8, Joseph, Nehemiah, Daniel 4, Pastor Chris Teien, Rockwell Church

Full Episode & Transcript: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/19516417

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Helping you apply God's Word and follow Jesus in everyday life. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church  Find episode transcripts at Well.faith 

Transcript

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Chris T 0:16

During this week, if you were reading through a proverb a day, you came across Proverbs chapter 16. There's a lot of good Proverbs, and if you haven't jumped on to the Proverb a Day, maybe you just want to start now. Today you'll almost get to go through all of chapter 16. So you can mark that one off your list, and then there's just a few more, quite a few more, that you could read. But it doesn't take long to read through Proverbs if you skim through it. But sometimes you read something real interesting and you just park on it and you're like, and you ponder it and you think it through and you're like, huh. I wonder how that applies. I wonder what that means to the original person that it was given to. Solomon's writing to a son or to sons, but it has through the power of the Holy Spirit applies to men, women, boys, and girls in many of the places. You can tell in context where that is. I want to do a flyover of Proverbs 16. There's no way I could get into every verse. We would be here for a really long time. But I just want you to ask yourself as we go through it, when it comes to your life, when it comes to your life decisions, when it comes to the things that you do and choose to do, are you trusting in God or are you trusting in yourself? Are you trusting God more than yourself? It's it seems easy for us to trust in ourselves when we've got enough. When we have a lot of money and savings, when we have a lot of cash in our pocket, when we're not deep in debt, when we have all this stuff, we're like, hmm, we're good. Don't need your help, God. I got it, I got it taken care of. I can pay it, I can do it, I can buy it, I can pay someone to do it, all of those different things. And to put God first actually is a better way to get ahead. Even if you have all those resources to put God first, you may end up in a better situation. When I was young, I was super impulsive. And when my wife, when we we had just gotten married and we wanted to have a family, and praise God, after we got married, then my wife got pregnant, and then we had a baby on the way, and things were good. She was working at a stockbroking company in the front office there, and I was working construction, and so things were good, and then she ended up on bed rest for premature labor, and so she ended up in bed, and then her paycheck wasn't coming anymore, and her health insurance wasn't following through anymore. And it's like, wait, I have good credit, I got this. So I foolishly, instead of praying about it, instead of trusting God, and what I should have done is we lived in a condo that was owned by individual owners. What I should have done is called this lady and told her what was going on and that we appreciate living here, and that my wife's on in premature labor and all this stuff. Because I just have this feeling that she would have said, Don't worry about it. I didn't know that until later, because there was a time when they wanted to sell the condo, they were gonna sell it to someone, and we decided that we were gonna buy it. So she said, Why don't you come on out to my house and sign these documents and everything like that? So we headed out to her house, and it was a monstrous home on Lake Minnetonka, and they did not need money. And but I went into debt, credit card debt, and had to pay interest and everything else. And when I look back on that, she could have totally said, You still need to pay me out or get out. But I just have this feeling that this kind-hearted lady might have just said, you know what, don't worry about it. But I just ran ahead and I said, Don't worry, God, I got this, I got this. And it was a really dumb thing to do. I didn't even pray about it. I'm like, I got good credit. Recently, like yesterday, actually all week long, the storm, when the storm went through, it broke one of my trees. The tree is broken in half towards the top. One of the poplar trees is like leaning over, and I had another tree do this, and it wasn't a big deal. My wife and I, we put a rope around it. My wife and I, we pulled on it. It wasn't working, so I pulled it down with the truck, cut it up, got it out of there. It was fine. When it fell down, it wasn't gonna hurt anything. But I've spent a week when I go outside with my dog to throw him the ball. I sit in a little chair, little lawn chair, and my dog puts the ball in the cup holder, and then I throw it and he runs around and he puts it in the cup holder, and it's really a great, it's a great thing. It's a great dog. But as we're doing this, I stare at the tree and I'm like, I could pull it this way, or I could pull it that way, but if it doesn't hinge that way and it goes this way, it's gonna trash the neighbor's fence. My new neighbor. And if I do it this way and it's swung that way, it's gonna fall in his shed. And if I get a rope saw and I cut it, I think I can get it down and it should fall this way, but if it falls over there, it's gonna ruin his fence. And so I've been dealing with this for a week. And I'm like, if I crawl, if I walk, if I take a ladder across the one that broke off, what if it's not stable and the ladder falls? Or what if when I've got the rope saw, it breaks loose and decides to come towards me and I fall and it falls on me and all this stuff, and then you need to find a new pastor. And so I've been dealing with this for a week. And I have a friend who is an arborist, like a professional tree guy. And I'm like, hey, you busy? And so he came over yesterday, and so he looked at it. He's like, Yeah, that's the problem with cutting trees down, is even if you're a professional, there's five different ways it's gonna fall, and you never know which one it's going to be. But he presented his plan and he said, Well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna take the broken part, we're gonna tie it up over here. So when it falls, it's gonna fall here, and then we'll lower it down and it'll be good. We'll cut it up, and then actually the other half of your tree is still good, so we'll just cut the top off and it will keep growing. And so, yeah, so he's gonna take care of it because in my old age, not even in laziness, I was willing to do it. It's kind of fun to cut wood. But in my old age, in wisdom, I thought, you know what? I should ask somebody first. I should ask at least for advice or see what we can do. Because the biggest thing is I don't want to have to replace my neighbor's fence, and I definitely don't want to have to pay for damaging his shed. But these are things where when you pray through and you trust God more than yourself, sometimes you'll be surprised at the result. Sometimes you'll be surprised at how God answers and what he does. Every day we have to ask questions, a little simple questions, like, how much should I eat? Where should now it's where should I eat? I kiddingly said recently that I was just eating the croutons without the lettuce. But now it turns out that is like something that everybody should be doing for safety reasons. So I don't know. Probably not gonna lose any weight that way. But nonetheless, what are you gonna do with your time? What are you gonna watch? What are you gonna listen to? All of those things. Then there's the bigger things, like for the younger people, like who should I marry? Or what career should I pursue? Or should I take this job? Should I stay here or should I move? How should I raise my children? How should I school my children? How should I discipline my children? Should I force my children to go to Bible camp? Those are all things that you can ask questions of. And Proverbs doesn't say that's bad. Proverbs 21:5 says, good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. So the world says, Oh, follow your heart, do what feels good. If the door is open, run through it, live your truth. And better yet, as we mentioned before, Proverbs 3:5, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding, seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. So in Proverbs 16, when we read Proverbs 16, we're going to see it opens up with, we can make our own plans. And then it ends with, we may throw the dice or cast the lots, but the Lord determines how they fall. That is an amazing promise to hold on to. It's also a bit of a mystery when some things in your life don't work out as you had hoped, or bad things happen and you wonder why God didn't prevent them. And so it comes kind of a mystery in trusting God when you've gone through the hard things, when you endure through sickness, when you endure difficulty, but to just trust and to move forward and to try to do God's will, God's way, and trust Him for the results. Again, as a pastor, sometimes I don't know how to answer the question of why God took a child's life. I remember quite a long time ago, but there was a little girl that got killed in a local parade. She was on a pony who reared up and she hit her head and she died, and I had no answer of why God allowed that. So on the other side of heaven, maybe we can ask. But we trust in our Lord and Savior, and we trust that the wisdom that we find in Proverbs, which isn't a 100% guarantee, but it's the way that it usually works, will make a difference in our life when we follow it. Again, you remember in the Old Testament, Joseph went through all the difficulties of his brothers, selling them into slavery and being in prison and all being falsely accused of being improper and all these different things. And but eventually Joseph found his place, the second most powerful in the kingdom, to save the people of the world, basically, from starvation. God trained him up for that, and he could look back and see that what his brothers intended for bad, God intended for good. So let's trust on that. God's wisdom calls us to trust him more than ourselves in every decision we make. Now that doesn't mean you don't make a decision, that means you pray about it. Maybe you say something like, Well, why don't when you're about to make a decision, you're about to buy a house or whatever, you tell your realtor, we're really interested in this house. We know other people might be interested too, but we'd like to take a day or so to pray about it and to seek some advice. And so then you do that. You pray about it and you seek some advice. And then if all is good, then you pursue and move forward and make that decision. Some Christ followers spend a lot of time praying and they spend forever to make a decision. Sometimes they don't even make a decision. The opportunity passes or their life passes before they make any kind of decision. Some people go through their whole lives coming to church, hearing about Jesus, and never making a decision to turn from their sin and to turn to Jesus and to experience new life. Number one, surrender your plans to God. Surrender your plans to God. This is going to be like a flyover, a read-through of Proverbs with a little bit of commentary. But again, I want you to keep asking yourself: are you putting God first with your decisions? Are you trusting God more than yourself? Because that's what this proverb talks about. So commit your plans to the Lord. We can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer. People may be pure in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives. Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. Planning is good. The Bible is for planning. If you look in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah wanted to build that wall and he had a plan. It started with prayer, and then he asked for the plan was to ask for resources, get the resources, head out, and build that wall. And he worked his plan and God blessed his plan. We should have plans. We should have strategies. Just listening to a church growth strategy expert the other day talking about how you want to, I don't have any staff people, but how you want to think about what you want to accomplish and what you want to change and try to do it all in 90 days. Make the next 90 days the thing that you set your goal for and all the things that you want to do and accomplish and work feverishly at that 90 days to see how much you can get done. You probably won't get it all done, but at least you'll get something done. Planning is huge. Sometimes your whole day slips away when you don't have a plan. And you can make your own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer. It is good when God is the one that's helping to guide your plans, empowers you with energy and strength and a lack of interruption to get those good plans done. Helps you to somehow get rid of the plans that aren't worth your time. Sometimes we have plans to do great things, build great things, and do all these things, and that's not part of God's will. And it would be a distraction and keep you from God's best for your life. And then God doesn't just look at what you're planning to do, but He knows what your motives are. You may be pure in your own eyes, but the Lord examines your motives. What are your motives for doing these things? There's some people that want to have a big, beautiful home because they're going to do a lot of entertaining. They're like, we're going to have, we want to have small group Bible studies here. We want to have people over. We just want it to be a hub of people that are finding out about Jesus and growing in their faith, and we're going to need some room to do that. And we're all about people. We need this big, beautiful home for that. And there's other people who just want to have a big, beautiful home because it's comfortable and it looks good and it makes their parents proud and everybody will talk well of them. Oh, look at that beautiful home. But God knows your motives. And so those big, beautiful homes, four-wheel drive vehicle, all these different things. That's not a big deal. The question is, why? Why do you need it? What's your motive? What are you going to do with it? God cares about that. To commit your actions to the Lord and your plans will succeed. I am so blessed now with GPS and all the different things that we have. It turns out with an add-on from my cell phone, I guess when I get out of range, out of signal, I can hook up to the satellite and I'll be able to send text messages and still get my Google map for what I understand. I had to go visit somebody recently and the road was closed. They just closed the road. They tore the road apart. And I'm basically in the middle of nowhere. And I'm like, I have no idea how to get there now. But the GPS came through. Sometimes, sometimes the Holy Spirit helps. Sometimes God sends people into your life to help guide you, direct you, give you information, give you resources to help you reach the destination God has for you. And it is a good thing. All right. We should trust God's sovereign purposes. Trust God's sovereign purposes. Proverbs 16:4. The Lord has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster. The Lord detests the proud, they will surely be punished. Unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin, and by fearing the Lord, people avoid evil. There are a lot of things to think about there. But what I want you to take from it when you're thinking about am I putting God first? Is that God is working out his plan. Even if we don't understand, even if we can't see it, even if we don't see the timing of it all, that God is working it out. And the haughty, the proud, the wicked, the evil. God sees, God knows. Sometimes we wish that God would deal with them quicker, deal with them sooner, but there will be a time when God takes care of that. But for us, unfailing love and faithfulness is something that we should have. But here verse 6 Who had unfailing love and faithfulness to make atonement for sin? Jesus. Jesus, he gave his life for us. God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us in Romans 5.8. So by fearing the Lord, people avoid evil. And again, I mentioned that evil, wickedness, sin, sometimes it can be appear fun. Sometimes it can seem exciting. Sometimes it seems like, oh, this is going to be great. And then once you fall into it, then Satan turns into the accuser. First he was the tempter. Oh, do it, everybody's doing it. But then he turns into the accuser. How could you call yourself a Christian? Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. Now God's disappointed in you. You might as well not even go to church. But to do right, to avoid temptation, to flee temptation, and to head in the right direction, to do the right thing is a good thing. You know when it talks about pride, by the way, in Daniel 4, King Nebuchadnezzar looked over Babylon and claimed the glory for himself, and God humbled him until he acknowledged that the Most High rules over every kingdom, because pride always brings us low, and humility lifts our eyes up to God. We can walk confidently in God's direction. When people's lives please the Lord, even their enemies are at peace with them. Better to have a little with godliness than to be rich and dishonest. We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. So think about that. So when you're living right, even people that don't particularly like you do like what you do. They do know, they do like it that you're trustworthy. They do like it that you can be counted on, that they don't have to fear you, that there can be peace. And some people sell out for money. Some people will do all sorts of things, dishonest things, to get money. And they'll end up with a lot of money, but they'll have no life satisfaction because of the things that they'll have regret, is what they will have. It says better to have little with godliness than to be rich and dishonest. And again, we can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. It's often God who determines if the door is open, if the resource will be there, if what you will need will be there at the right time. So it was a long time ago, 30 years ago, I think, that I graduated from Bible college, which means I've been in now ministry for 30 years, which is pretty cool. But I remember there was a time when I, every year from the time I got married in 1987 until I graduated in 1996, I felt like I was out of God's will, that I was supposed to be in Bible college, and that working at this job wasn't part of God's will, that I was out of God's will. So it turns out that actually I was in God's will and it was all good. But I remember one time I wanted to pay cash. I didn't want to go take out a student loan. And so prayed about it. And my wife and I are like, well, we could probably afford to pay cash if we went to Oak Hills Bible College. But I didn't have a job up there, and so we prayed about it. And we're like, okay, God, we're gonna go to Oak Hills, we're gonna take our little kid family with us, we're gonna go up there and we're gonna walk in the door, and if it feels right, we're gonna sign up and we're gonna move and we're gonna go to Bemidji. And so we prayed about it, and we got there, and we walked in the doors, and we looked around, and it's like, you know, I don't know. It just what do you think? And my wife's like, I don't know, it doesn't feel like we're supposed to be here, not that Oak Hills is a bad school, just not that I don't know. And we're like, what should we do? It's like I don't think that we should sell everything to move here, and so we left and we took the kids bowling and then we went back home. And so then I signed up the next day to go to classes at St. Paul Bible College or Crown College, and I did take out part of a student loan, but fortunately I was able to get it paid off and everything. But I believe that was God's plan, but he wanted to make sure that we were fully committed to it, and so God opened the door and it was part of what God did to train me up for ministry and also to provide for my family and not go deep into debt. So praise God. All right. Number two, we should value God's wisdom above worldly success. We should value God's wisdom above worldly success. Just real quick, I skipped actually in chapter 16, verses 10 to 15, not just for the sake of time, but because it turns into the section that talks about instruction for kings, which is good, which kings should rule with integrity and justice and honesty and all of those things. And so I hope that all of you live your life like a king. But I just skipped it because it didn't apply as much to the answers to this question that I have of trust, are you trusting God more than yourself? So, number two, value God's wisdom above worldly success. Some people chase after worldly success. It is a tough thing to chase after because it seems like the target's always moving. You know, what is it? What does it take to be successful? Who do you have to know? What do you have to wear? What do you have to drive? Where do you have to live? How much money do you have to be seen as successful? But don't worry about that. Be successful in God's eyes. Verse 16 How much better to get wisdom than gold and good judgment than silver? The path of the virtuous leads away from evil, and whoever follows that path is safe. So what do you spend your resources on? It's better to get wisdom than gold, good judgment than silver. I'm a proponent of paying a lot of money for Bibles. The printed Bible with a good binding and good Bible paper costs money to produce. And it always blows me away when I suggest somebody buy a Bible that may be $50 or $70, and they're like, oh, that's just way too much money. But they went to the movie and they took their kids out to eat, and that was $100. It's like, shouldn't you invest in eternal life? Shouldn't you invest in something that would help you to grow in Christ and help your family? But pride goes before destruction and haughtiness before a fall. Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud. Also talks about finances and also talks about choosing humility over pride. You know, somebody, maybe even you, could inherit millions of dollars. You could inherit millions of dollars and lose it through foolish decisions because you have no wisdom. You had no idea what to do with it. You don't know what God's purpose was for you to have it. But when you have wisdom, when you possess godly wisdom, that's something that can't be stolen, devalued, destroyed, or taken away. So amazing how fast time goes. But here we repeatedly see over and over and over again God values humility, not pride. God values us when we're humble, not when we're proud. That's why I think it's so important that we always give God the glory and God the credit. So it's like if you did something great and wonderful, that's good. But praise God, Jesus, He gave me the ability, He gave me the opportunity, He gave me this platform for this time to proclaim Him and make an eternal difference in the world. And we should find joy in trusting the Lord. Those who listen to instruction will prosper. Those who trust the Lord will be joyful. Have you been joyful? Joyful does it, according to James, joyful doesn't always mean you're happy, but it does mean that you have a confidence, a confident assurance that everything's gonna work out, that God is in control. And so to listen to instruction. So I don't know, it would be fun if you like emailed in or texted in or whatever. Some of your favorite proverbs that are challenging, motivating you, or guiding your life that you're finding in the book of Proverbs, and maybe sometime in the month of August, I could share some of those ones that were the guiding principles in your life. But let me continue on. So number three, follow God's ways every day. Follow God's ways every day. It's easy to follow your ways every day. Sometimes it's tough to follow God's ways every day. So verse 21. The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Discretion is a life-giving fountain to those who possess it, but discipline is wasted on fools. From a wise mind comes wise speech. The words of the wise are persuasive. Kind words are like honey, sweet to the soul, and healthy for the body. So even the Apostle Paul said, Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone in Colossians 4, 6. So, like we were taught when we were kids, before speaking, we should ask ourselves: is it true? Is it necessary? Is it gracious? Does it need to be shared? Those are important things. Once your words come out of your mouth, you can't get them back. So it is tough to get them back. It's almost like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube after it comes out. So we had some expensive toothpaste one time and some came out too much, and I'm like trying to make an air thing in it and get it back in the tube. It's kind of like words. It's like, okay, I gotta go to that person and tell them that I'm really sorry that what I said was meant to say, or I shouldn't have said that, or forgive me for saying that, or you don't see those people again, so you go home and you pray, Lord, help the words that I said that were meaningful stick, and the other ones that weren't fall to the ground and be forgotten. Help me not to be foolish in the way that I talk again. It's a good prayer. All right, verse 25. There's a path before each person that seems right, but ends in death. It is good for workers to have an appetite, an empty stomach drives them on. Scoundrels create trouble. Their words are destructive blaze. A troublemaker plants seeds of strife, gossip separates the best of friends. Violent people mislead their companions, leading them down harmful paths, and with narrowed eyes, people plot evil. With a smirk, they plan their mischief. So here we have a path. We have a path of people who choose to do wrong, who choose to get ahead by being evil and strategizing all these evil things they can do. And then we have the righteous people, the people that head down the right path, that do the right thing, that are motivated to work by their appetite, by their hunger. Those are good things. And God sees them all. God knows the motives, God knows why they do it, and He cares. He knows, He sees, and He cares. So the right path or the path that seems right isn't always the path that is right. Trusting God more than yourself means believing God's word over your own feelings. And finally, the last one. It is gained by living a godly life. Better to be patient than powerful, better to have self-control than to conquer a city. We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall. Or we may cast lots. So that's one of the things about the Bible translations is nobody knows what it means to cast lots. But when Trimper Longman III oversaw the translation of Proverbs, because the New Living Translation was interpreted and redone by like up to 90 biblical scholars that we like, they said, you know what really makes sense in our day? You know how this would kind of what this is like throwing dice. Let's use that. And they did. But gray hair, that does not mean that if you have gray hair, that you are a righteous, godly person. However, it does mean that if you've been a righteous, godly person for a while and you have gray hair, praise God, it's a crown. It's a crown of glory gained by living a godly life. It is a good thing. And here, better to be patient than powerful, better to have self-control than to conquer a city. Self-control, humility, trusting God, putting him first, asking before the big decisions are made, seeking the direction. When the big decision is made, then trusting him to guide and provide and to help you move forward, those are all good things. The worship team can come up here and I'll pray. Lord, I just thank you so much that we have your words. And Lord, I thank you for Proverbs, which each different proverb that's listed gives us an opportunity to ponder, to think about how it applies to our life, how it should guide and direct us. Some don't apply to us, many do. Sometimes we highlight and circle the ones that do, and sometimes they guide us, direct us, encourage us in the hard times, motivate us in the low in the lean times, and can be used to encourage others. Lord, we thank you for it. Lord, help us to be students of your word. Lord, help us to take multiple Bible translations and Bible tools and apply that to looking into your word, to be self-feeding each week, that each day we spend time in your word, in prayer, growing, maybe even memorizing Scripture. God, use us in our humility to do awesome, wonderful, powerful things, to make a difference in the world with the days that we have here before we go to be with you for eternity. So we just thank you for it all. And if there's anybody here that doesn't know you as our Lord and Savior, that they would approach me or someone else and ask questions and that we could help them to find out what that means and to enter into salvation and new life. So we just thank you in Jesus' name, amen.