Most everyone I know wants ultimately two things in life–a peaceful life & a fulfilling life. What about you? Most everyone I know also feels that in some way, that life is not cooperating with their desire. Life keeps setting up barriers. Things keep getting in the way of achieving a peaceful life and a fulfilling life.
I’ve come to realize that the only way I can find peace and fulfillment is to make the right decisions about how I conduct my life. I can’t always control what happens to me BUT, I can determine the principals I live by and how I react to what happens to me! A man once said, “Making decisions is simple: Get the facts, seek God’s guidance, form a judgment, act on it, worry no more.”
A friend was trying to make a point one day, a point about the need to make decisions and the need to take ACTION on these decisions that we make. So he ask me, “if you had five frogs on a log and three of them decided to jump, how many frogs would you have left on the log?” “It’s pretty easy”, I answered: “Two.” “Wrong,” he said, “there would still be five because there is a difference between DECIDING TO JUMP and jumping.”
It is important in life that we make good solid decisions. How do we do that?
First and foremost, by trusting God. By making decisions with humility and reverence for God’s will.
Second, by seeking the answer. Don’t reinvent the wheel–we should be confident that seeking advice and knowledge is not a sign of weakness but is actually a sign of strength and intelligence.
Third, and I think this is the one that people misunderstand the most, by resisting making decisions BASED only on our own gain or prestige: We should resist the temptation to make a decision based on our ultimate gain (power, money, fame, etc.) as this often leads to bad decisions.
And lastly, by bathing our decisions in prayer. This brings us full circle to the first way to make good decisions, by trusting God.
Proverbs 3:5-6 (TNIV)
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.Proverbs 18:15 (TNIV)
The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.Matthew 16:26 (TNIV)
What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?Luke 6:12-13 (TNIV)
12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, …
So, when faced each day with what to do in order to help reach that peaceful and fulfilled goal, do you make decisions with God’s wisdom or yours? What set of principals do you use? God’s principals and wisdom or the principals and wisdom of your friends? When you get in a tough spot, how do you react? What principals do you apply? I pray that as we explore this whole thing about decisions that you will see that it is better to go through life making decisions that are in God’s will than to follow the principals of the world.
May you seek daily a relationship with Jesus, to trust in his leading. May you seek the answers in your life and may you resist the temptation of always making decisions based on personal gain.