Proverbs 20:5

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

Understanding other people is a skill I am still working on. You too. None of us has direct access to each other’s minds, as Scripture acknowledges (Mark 2:8), and even if we did, the analysis would likely be backbreaking, just because each of us is a person about the same size, fully comprehended, as each other. I can’t fit all of you into me, so I cannot comprehend you. I can just approximate you in a fuzzy way, forming a limited understanding of people generally and combining it with a limited understanding of you specifically. In God’s grace, it’s enough for relationship, which is most of the point, but still the whole affair is often exhausting and regularly bewildering.

When we’re kids, we as a rule understand other people in relatively simple terms. Very young children often find it hard to recognize change to those simplistic terms, as we see when a kid gets frightened by his dad’s post-shave beardlessness. Part of the work of growing up is learning other people with more nuance and complexity.

One major problem is that we tend to perceive other people as odd reiterations of ourselves. Our thought processes are how we understand others, and so when we try to figure out what they’re thinking, we, using our thought processes, easily put them into our patterns. More, we start to assume they know what we know, have the perspective we have…. The consequences of this easy assumption can be disastrous, breaking relationships or causing outright physical damage.

The peripheral things, at least, are relatively easy to get a grasp on, given a decent memory and some diligence. Live around somebody long enough, and you’ll build up all sorts of bits of information on him. You’ll know what he looks like, what he sounds like, what he likes to eat or doesn’t, and more. These details are incomplete, sometimes to the point of being wrong, but you’ve got something.

The layer of information next-down is also relatively available, when the relationship lasts. What does he believe in? What does he care about? A complete picture here is the work of years, but a few salient points are easily enough obtained, assuming he’s not a liar. Of course, all of us are liars at times, by omission or commission, and all of us keep some things to certain places (right and proper, but inconvenient).

But the deeper truths of a man, those can be hard to get at. What is his basic priority? Understanding this is the work of a lifetime, because it’s really only verifiable by long observation and interaction, comparing words and deeds, finding patterns. Even high-stakes situations aren’t going to speed this situation up completely; men will die for things less important to them than their core, and people under stress can think in the oddest ways, throwing chaff into the signal.

All this seems to leave us floundering. For all of us, understanding people is an incomplete process, a skill we’re still getting better at, and even masters are only masters in comparison to the rest of us. But God does promise sufficient understanding is possible—a thing useful all across our lives, both in forming strong relationships and in evaluating those with whom we only peripherally interact, like witnesses at a trial or potential business partners.

“A man of understanding,” God says, can ‘draw out’ “the purpose in a man’s heart” (Prov. 20:5). It is hidden deep, but God gives us wisdom to see it, as far as we need for a wise choice. Not a perfect sight or a perfect choice, note. The wise man “will draw it out,” but sometimes we, for all we’ve sought wisdom, don’t act in it (1 John 1:10), even the best of us. We shut our eyes in just the wrong way, leaving us blind to a person’s true nature.

So He gives also the grace and preservation which keep us afloat when we err. Christians, even mature Christians, will make plenty of mistakes on whom to trust and whom not to distrust. One marries the wrong woman; another avoids marrying a woman he could have trusted to the death. One chooses a business partner badly; another distrusts a witness who was telling the truth. God gives us assurance that He uses all these mistakes to our good (Rom. 8:28) and to His glory (John 11:4). They are not good in themselves, but in His providence they are not only tolerable but excellent, a part of His cultivation of His people and His creation (Gen. 1:26-27, 1:28).

God bless.

Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.