Decision making #1
How do you go about making crucial decisions? What process do you use? Where (if anywhere) do you put God in the equation?
Does God automatically put a rubber stamp on our decisions?
Is He ambivalent about how we use our time and money? (as long as there’s no sin involved, he has no opinion?)
Does He give direct counsel on specific issues or does He only deal in generalities?
R. Barton puts really well, “Is there a trustworthy process for actively seeking God relative to decisions we are making?” (Strengthening the Soul of Leadership, 194).
I don’t pretend to have all the answers to questions like these. On the one hand, I don’t think that God has a hidden set of Robert’s Rules of Order that He’s hoping that we will discover. There is no hidden-here’s-how-to-make-every-decision-in-life formula. But at the same time, I think God’s love for us compels Him to care and have concern about the matters that concern us. I even think that God is saddened when we make too much of some matters that are highly trivial.
So where should we begin as we seek to make godly decisions? Here are two pieces of sound advice (for more I might suggest reading chapter 12 of R. Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Leadership).
1. Ask yourself, “Who are my counselors?” – Have I talked with any godly people as I have sought to determine what is best? Am I in this all alone?
2. Ask yourself, “Am I really indifferent about this important decision?” Jesus tells us that to follow Him we must die to ourselves. Have I really done that in this decision? Do I stand to gain a lot from this decision? Am I attached to the outcome of this decision? Can I be honest about how I feel about this decision and my agenda? What is really driving me as I consider this situation?
Thanks! I do feel like I am all alone in my current struggles and the obvious and logical choice by any objective standard would lead people I am close to to abandon me.
Great insights! I’d like to add to this discussion with an idea I read long ago which has helped me. That most of the decisions we make are morally neutral yet have profound consequences to ourselves, families and even strangers. Some are are paralyzed fearful of make any decision for fear of being “outside the will of God”. I’ve found it very helpful to remember that the will of God is not like a set of train tracks that run only one direction. As we make our godly, well counseled decisions God can make any decisions turn out for our and His good. So as we decide we should not fear that we could make an ungodly decisons. He is continually work all things for our good.
I have been thinking through what it means to Follow Jesus. What if we begin to focus on His agenda and not our own. This doesn’t mean you don’t bring your problems before God it just means as you pray He may take you down another path and never answer your questions. Sometimes I find myself asking God Lord what should I pray. Other times I’m reading scripture and asking myself Lord what would you pay the most attention to as I read this. If we are going to take Gods grace seriously I think we have to take a serious look away from our sins and personal struggles and begin to pay attention to what Jesus is looking at. As we begin to take on Jesus story and his agenda a lot of the time your own problems and struggles will fall to the wayside as you pick up your cross and follow Him.
How the following statement plays out in view of the power of God and our decisions I leave to the estimation of the reader. One educator talking about reforming the educational system in our country said that we should, “Choose battles that are large enough to matter but small enough to win.”