What Shapes Your Decisions? A Biblical Study of the Heart

What Shapes Your Decisions?

The decisions that changed your life didn’t begin on the day you made them.

By the time a conclusion felt certain, something has been shaping it for a long while. The outcome can be visible though the process that formed it usually not. That made me wonder whether the Bible explains this pattern.

Start Before the Famous Verse

Proverbs 4:23 is the verse most of us know. Guard your heart. I have quoted it for years. But I always started in the middle.

Proverbs 4 is not a collection of disconnected thoughts. It begins with a Father instructing his son how to live his life.

He tells him to hear his words, receive instruction, pursue wisdom, avoid the path of the wicked, and keep God’s words because they are life and health to all his flesh (body). Wait what? That means your body too. Look at that yourself:

“Let them not depart from thine eyes; Keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, And health to all their flesh.”‭‭ Proverbs‬ ‭4‬:‭21‬-‭22‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Only after building that foundation he says:

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23 KJV

See the order? The words go in first. Then he says guard it. I had never noticed that before.

The Hebrew word for "diligence" is mishmar. It means a guard post. A place where someone stands and watches what comes in.

And "issues" is totsa'ah. It means goings out. Think of a spring. The water that comes out is the water that was already there.

So your heart is not just a feeling place. It is a source. Whatever is in it will flow out.

The Edge

Then I kept following the same thought into Matthew 15. I didn’t begin with verse 19. I started earlier. Jesus first explains that what enters (food) a person’s body does not defile him because it passes through the body. It does not make a person unclean. Then the conversation turns to something entirely different:

“But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” Matthew‬ ‭15‬:‭18‬-‭20‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Look at the list. Evil thoughts come first. The actions come after.

Now look at one word mouth. The Greek is stoma. The same word is used for the edge of a sword in Luke 21:24. That changed how I read it. Your mouth is an edge. And an edge only cuts with what the heart handed it.

I couldn’t read that without thinking about another proverb:

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: And they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” Proverbs 18:21 KJV

The Hebrew word for "power" is yad. It means hand. Death and life sit in the hand of the tongue. So the edge is in your hand. Not your parent’s. Not your husband's. Yours.

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:” ‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭19‬ ‭KJV‬‬

So What Shapes Your Decisions?

“Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.” Proverbs 23:6-7 (KJV)

The Hebrew word for "thinketh" is shâ'ar. It carries the idea of weighing something up. Estimating it. It is close to the word for a gate.

So the verse is not about a passing thought. It is about what a person has weighed, decided is true, and let settle in.

Here is my answer to the question: what shapes your decisions is what you have let through the gate of your heart, and what you keep weighing there. And it’s not only what people say to you, or what happened. But what you keep returning to.

You know how this goes. It is 2 a.m. You replay one sentence from today. One look. One silence. You play it over again and again.

By morning you have reached a verdict. No one said a word. You counted it as true. And now you are making a decision from it.

Who Keeps the Gate?

There is one more thing. You know Philippians 4:8. It is the "think on these things" verse. For years I read it like a to-do list for my mind. But look at what Paul wrote right before it.

“And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7 (KJV)

Only then does he write:

“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report… think on these things.” Philippians 4:8 (KJV)

Pay attention to the order. Paul does not begin with "think better thoughts."

The Greek word for "keep" is phroureo. It is a military word. And means to stand, be a watcher, guard over a city.

That is what astonished me. The guard isn't me, it’s the peace of God.