A small guide for making BIG decisions

Fly by the seat of your pants.
Let your conscience be your guide.
Take the road less traveled.
Surely you’ve heard one of these pearls of worldly wisdom when it came time to make a big decision.


Life is full of decisions. Navigating your way through life without having a trustworthy guide is just about as silly as making all your decisions using the playground game of “Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe.”
How do you make wise decisions?

They can be the big ones such as choosing a career, deciding where to go to college, or finding “the One.” Even the so-called smaller decisions can be life-changing: what group of friends to hang out with, where to go for spring break, whether to go to that party.

Here are some practical suggestions and steps to follow:

1. Are you a Christian?
 This entire process depends on your answer.
If you are, there is a wealth of solid guidance available to you. It’s like having 24/7 tech support at your fingertips. If you aren’t a Christian, the following suggestions probably won’t mean much to you, in which case you could find yourself depending on ­advice and clichés while you float your way down the creek of life without a paddle.

2. Whom are you trying to please? 
Admit it: sometimes you’ve already made up your mind, but are just looking for someone to agree with you. That can be a good or bad thing, ­depending on your priorities. We can be good at fooling ourselves during this process. Some people can even find “support” in the Bible for their wrong choices. Test yourself to see if you would be open to ­following other ­suggestions, especially if it came from God’s Word or a trusted wise person. If you can answer yes, then you might be on the right track.

3. What does God say about it? 
Go to church long enough, and you’ll ­probably hear something about “seeking God’s will.” You were probably just as confused as I was. One definition of will is a “wish or desire.”1 What do you think God wishes for you? Read His Word. It is the primary way God speaks to us and should be an important part of your decision-making process. Seek God’s wisdom and ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand as you read Scripture. Your specific situation may not be outlined in the Bible, but there are biblical principles to guide you. Seek God, read His Word, and obey it.

4. God gave you a brain, so use it. 
Is your situation something God has already clearly answered in His Word? (Hint: you’ll have to do some research to find out.) Have your parents forbidden you to do something, and you are wondering if you should follow their rules or not? Are you operating purely on feelings? Is it against the law? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then your search is over. Follow what God’s Word, your parents, or the law says. Sometimes, it’s more about being obedient than
being confused.

5. Pray. 
Need help making an important decision? There’s an app for that! One of our most important tools for making decisions is prayer. No, it doesn’t always make sense. No, you don’t always get the answer you want (or as quickly as you want it!). It’s not on a 3G network. James 1:5-6 instructs us to ask God for wisdom without doubting Him. Jesus tells us to ask and seek, comparing Himself to a loving father who wants to give his children what they need. (See Matthew 7:7-11.) Did you get that? God actually cares about what you need.

6. Seek guidance. 
Ask for advice from someone you know who lives out his or her Christian faith. Talk out the pros and cons. Sometimes the process of arriving at a decision is as important as the end result. Furthermore, as a Christian, you have the ultimate adviser in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us when we don’t even know what to pray for, searches our hearts for us, and even steps in for us to ask for what we need in a way that matches God’s will. (See Rom. 8:26-27.)

7. Be ready to obey. 
The tricky part now is acting on what you have decided to do through prayer, God’s Word, and counsel from others. Ever heard the saying,“The safest place to be is in the center of God’s will”?

This is not always true, nor is it biblical. Think about Jesus’ disciples in the boat during a storm, Daniel waiting for the lions to eat him, and Jesus praying His heart out the night before He was crucified. Following what God wants you to do will not always be safe (at least in the worldly definition). But trust that God always has a perfect plan.

Think about it in terms of the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. At one point in the book, the children in Narnia are learning about Aslan (the talking lion character who represents God), and they are told, “’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”2

The point is this: sometimes, what God wants you to do won’t always be the thing that looks the safest or most secure, at least from our point of view. But God has our best interests and His glory in mind—and He knows what He’s doing even when we don’t.

If nothing else makes sense, take this truth with you: God cares about every decision you make and wants to walk through it all with you. Remember, it may be a wild ride, but you won’t be on it alone. 

Sources
1. “Will,” Dictionary.com, cited 1 April 2010. Available from the Internet: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/will.
2. C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1950), 146.


For more on this topic, see this article and more in the July 2010 issue of ec. See page 46-48.
Article by Brandi Lunsford, "Flip a coin: a small guide for making big decisions," ec magazine (Nashville: LifeWay Christian Resources, 2010), 46-48).