Thinking in Christ — Issue 23: The Problem Truly Named

There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

The age has a counsel for the man who faces a difficulty, and it sounds like wisdom. Define the problem. Gather information. Break it into parts. Set clear objectives, specific and measurable and time-bound. Consider the stakeholders. Prioritize and sequence. Write a problem statement. Seek clarification until everyone shares the same understanding. On this telling, a problem well defined is a problem half solved, and the man who names his trouble precisely has already begun to master it.

Therefore this issue must press one question before any of that counsel can be trusted. Who names the problem? For the definer is not neutral, and the instrument that names the trouble is itself part of the trouble. A man who defines his own problem will define it in a way that spares himself. He will name the symptom and protect the cause. He will name the obstacle and excuse the heart. He will name what others did and pass over what he is. The method changes nothing about this, because the method is operated by the man who benefits from the misnaming. A problem statement written by a deceitful heart is not a diagnosis. It is an alibi with a structure.

Consider first the anchor. There is a way which seems right to a man. The verse does not say the way is obviously wrong, or that the man is careless, or that he failed to gather information. It says the way seems right. It has the full appearance of a well-defined problem with a sensible solution. The man has likely done everything the age counsels. He has identified the difficulty, weighed the evidence, and set his objective. And the end of it is death. The seeming is the danger. A way can seem right at every step and still lead to death, because the seeming belongs to the man, and the man is the one who is wrong.

Because of this, Scripture names the deeper problem before it names any particular difficulty. The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9) The problem beneath every problem is not a lack of information or a poorly written objective. It is a heart departed from Yahweh. Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh. (Jeremiah 17:5) The man who trusts in his own defining trusts in man, and the man he trusts is himself. His arm is flesh, and his heart has already departed, so his definition of the problem will depart with it. This is why no mind is neutral (Romans 12:2). A mind conformed to the world will define its problems in the world's terms: how to be comfortable, how to be effective, how to be approved, how to remove the pain. A mind renewed by the Word will define its problems in God's terms: what God commands, what God forbids, where the heart has departed, what must be repented of. The same difficulty, defined by two different minds, becomes two different problems, and only one of them is true.

Yet this does not abolish careful thinking about difficulties, and it does not make the believer careless about facts. It relocates the definition. The problem is not first defined by the man and then submitted to God for approval. It is defined by God, and the man learns its true name by standing under His Word. Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6) Notice the order. Trust comes before understanding. Acknowledgment comes before the straight path. The man does not first understand the problem clearly and then trust God with the solution. He trusts God while his understanding is still his own, and therefore still suspect, and he acknowledges God in all his ways, including the way he names the trouble. The straight path is not the reward for a well-written problem statement. It is the gift given to the man who stops leaning on the understanding that produced the crooked definition.

For this reason, gathering information finds its place under the Word rather than above it. Facts may corroborate what God has said about the heart and about the difficulty. But evidence never founds faith. God's testimony about His Son stands first (1 John 5:9-10). The believer does not conclude that his problem is sin because his research proved it, nor that his objective is godly because his data supports it. He knows the problem is sin because God has named it, and he reads his data, his counselors, and his stakeholders in that light. A problem defined by its data alone will be redefined by the next set of data. A problem defined by the Word will stand when the data changes, because the definition rests on the God who does not change.

Consider, then, what happens to the age's strategies when they are placed under this rule rather than above it. Breaking a problem into parts is not evil, but the parts must be named by the Word, not by the self's wish to divide the blame. A man may break his difficulty into ten parts and still miss the one part that matters: his own heart departed from God. Setting objectives is not evil, but objectives under the Word are received, not self-authored. The believer does not invent his target and then ask God to bless it. He receives the command and then orders his steps under it. The kingdom of God and His righteousness come first, and all other things are added by the hand that gives them, not seized by the hand that defined them (Matthew 6:33). Considering others is not evil. But no stakeholder's perspective, including one's own, is neutral (2 Corinthians 10:5). Every thought must be taken captive to obey Christ, including the thought that the problem has now been defined well. Seeking clarification is not evil. But clarification that ends in a shared human agreement is not the same as clarification that ends in submission to God's Word. Men can agree entirely and still be wrong together.

At the same time, Scripture does give the believer a true way to seek wisdom about a difficulty. If any man lacks wisdom, Scripture directs him to ask of God, who gives generously (James 1:5). The asking assumes what the age denies: that the man does not yet know what he needs, and cannot supply it by defining harder. Wisdom is received, not manufactured by method. The man who asks God for wisdom has confessed the deepest problem before he has named the surface one: he does not know, and his knowing has already failed him.

This is where the testimony reaches its center. The problem man cannot name truly is the problem Christ came to resolve. The understanding darkened and alienated from the life of God (Ephesians 4:18) is not cured by a better definition. It is cured by a new life, and that life is in the Son. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). The man who defines his own way has chosen a way that seems right. The man who comes to Christ has been given the Way that is right, and his difficulties are now defined by the One who is the truth rather than by the seeming that deceived him. The cross does not ratify the man's problem statement. It exposes it, and then it answers the problem the man had hidden beneath it: a heart departed, a debt unpaid, a death deserved, and a life given.

So let the final word reverse the age's counsel. Do not define your problem and then ask God to solve the definition. Stand under the Word that names the problem truly, and let it name what you would have spared. Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Ask God for the wisdom you do not have. Receive your objective from His command rather than authoring it from your desire.

There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12) The way that seems right has been defined by the man who is deceived. The way that is right has been defined by God, and it is found not in a better problem statement, but in the Son who is Himself the Way.