Devotion for October 20, 2020 – Pastor Tim of Holy Trinity
?? Choices ??
Making wise decisions isn’t always an easy task. We’re faced with decisions every day.Decisions that keep us up at night. Some are life-threatening, or life-changing and those kinds of decisions are scary and hard!
Take this job or that job?
Say ‘yes’ or say ‘no’?
Speak out or remain silent?
The good and bad decisions we are making now will affect us, our family, and the people we influence for years to come. If we think we can just sit back in relaxed passivity for the rest of our lives and never make a decision – we are wrong. The fact is — indecision is still a decision, albeit not a very good one.
It’s easy to want to have everything spelled out for us. I’ll admit, I sometimes wish God would just hand me a playbook that I could peek at every once in a while when I need to make a big decision.
I am learning slowly that God doesn’t hand us a playbook. Instead, God provides us with scripture, prayer, intelligence and one another.
Spend time with scripture
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105
Seek the Spirit of God through connecting with the Word of God. Spend time reading your Bible and be open to what God’s Word is saying.
Pray
Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
When making big decisions, we often want the answer laid out before us. We want a detailed blueprint for our life and for God’s will in our life – unfortunately, we aren’t really given that.
We need to be in regular communication with our Creator. We need to have daily conversations with God. God already knows what we want. God is Omniscient. God sees history past, present, and future all at once.
Then why does God want us to pray if God already knows? God wants to have a close and meaningful relationship with us. God wants us to learn and grow in our relationship with Him. Part of our prayer time needs to be spent in silence.We cannot hear God if we are doing all the talking!
Seek Counsel
Without counsel, plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22
Before making any decision, I think it is vitally important that we seek the counsel of others. While we do need the counsel of someone we love and trust, we don’t need someone who will agree with us no matter what. We need persons who will speak the hard truth, even when it hurts. We need someone who isn’t afraid to disagree with us.
Every day we journey on this earth is a day in which we make choices. I close with a helpful list of questions I found on one of my “web travels.” Perhaps you could add these to your list as you discern your choices:
- How will we use our gifts?
- What difficult choices will we make–when it might be easier to hide?
- Will inertia be our guide, or will we follow our passions?
- Will we follow dogma, or will we leap forward and be original, generous and helpful?
- Will we choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
- Will we wilt under criticism, or will we follow our convictions?
- Will we bluff it out when we’re wrong, or will we apologize?
- Will our choices be at the expense of others, or will we choose to be kind?
- A cynic, or a builder?
Let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
Romans 14:19
God be with us as we make our choices every single day.
Pastor Tim
