Making Decisions
Posted: 1/8/2020
Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)
The decisions we face daily can produce great stress in our lives. Sometimes we are forced to live with the results of others’ decisions. But we always live with the knowledge that we are responsible for the outcome of the decisions we make.
Can you imagine the decisions some people face? To commit the nation to war, to honor a loved one’s living will, to be a “whistle blower” even though it might mean losing one’s job?
Any decision can seem like a monumental, mind-threatening one if we are not focused on the Lord. There are times when we try to predict what the future will hold if we choose option A or option B. That strategy is a stress-producer for sure. Wouldn’t it be a relief if we could be assured that, whatever decisions we make, God can use them to accomplish His purposes in our lives?
According to Romans 8:28, God has given us such assurance. If we are lovers of God and have entrusted ourselves to His temporal and eternal care, even an unwise decision can be redeemed. Why? Because to those who love Him, He promises to cause all decisions to work for good.
God’s primary purpose for our life is to make us like Christ, not to ensure that we’re happy (Romans 8:29). In order to achieve that long-range goal, He takes the results of our free-will choices and molds them into forces that will make us holy. If that requires him nicking a corner off here and sanding down a rough spot there on our work-in-progress lives, then that’s what He does. He wants us to learn to rely on Him, so self-reliance and self-sufficiency are some of the first things we must give up. While we agonize over our choices, God is strategizing over our character.
Let’s remember we are not alone when we make decisions. Our decisions may not be perfect in our sight, but God is perfectly able to use the results of our choices “to will and to act according to his good purpose”—and our Christlikeness (Philippians 2:13).
Heavenly Father, Thank you that you can use every decision I make to accomplish Your purposes in my life. Give me wisdom to choose well and faith to trust You with the outcome. Amen.
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