There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14:12)
This passage from Proverbs frightens me. The part that I find so disturbing is most specifically the part about a way that "seems right to a man." I find it frightening because it doesn't say, "There is a wrong way that a man decides to do even when he knows what the right way is" but rather that the way "seems right" meaning that when I am on it, then it seems like the correct thing to do. I'd like to think that the ways I am choosing are either obviously right or obviously wrong and when I'm on the wrong path then I am only on it because I want to be. That is, I'm being willful and rebellious and I know it. But this passage indicates that this isn't always the case and rather there is a way that I think is right but which is not. What is twisting my judgment like this? In the book of James we find:
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)I read this passage and I'm inclined to believe that this is the type of temptation that I know about, acknowledge as such, fight, and end up yielding to. We know what kind of temptations those are and we live with them all of the time. But it seems to me that there are more dangerous temptations and they are the ones that we find a way to justify. So we are still led astray by our own desires, but in the latter case we decide that those desires are acceptable, that is, they are "right" and then when "desire is conceived" and "gives birth to sin" we are now more likely than ever to allow that sin to become fully grown and "bring forth death" because our guard is completely down. Thomas à Kempis writes about this like so:
We frequently judge that things are as we wish them to be, for through personal feeling true perspective is easily lost.and again:
Many, unawares, seek themselves in the things they do.Our own emotions and desires cloud our judgment and "through personal feeling true perspective is easily lost." It is this kind of temptation that is the more dangerous kind and it is this kind that the writer in Proverbs discusses when he says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." The person being discussed cannot see that the end is the way to death because they so long for it to be the way to life and, though unawares, "Seek themselves in the things they do." We are all like this to some degree. We judge a great many things around us in a relative sense to the things we care about and desire. Our judgment is not absolute and we are unwilling to submit to God in all that we do. We determine that passages we read in the Bible don't apply to us for some reason or another or we decide they mean something other than what they clearly state because what they clearly state is against our own desires. So, "hearing we do not hear, and seeing we do not see, or understand."
