The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions

by Emily P. Freeman

What is something you’re thinking about pursuing, starting, quitting, making, finishing, or embracing? If you don’t see the clear path, the end game, or the five-year plan, take heart. Be excessively gentle with yourself. Get still. Stop talking. Pause the constant questioning of everyone else’s opinion. Now hold that thing, whatever it is, in your mind. Pay attention to your body and your soul—Does it rise or does it fall?

In the midst of this highly stimulating exterior world, I made a discovery about my interior world: the input is automatic. So where is the output? How am I regularly getting rid of the soul clutter I no longer need?

But when our souls are filled with clutter, what is meant to be complex and awe-inspiring can become complicated and exhausting. One of my favorite things Joshua Becker says about minimalism is that it’s not enough to just declutter; we have to de-own.

if you are carrying an unmade decision, you have to find a way to push back the distraction of your phone and allow some nothing space to fill the in-between moments.

What’s next? The specifics are up to you, but I would suggest a willingness to allow some space during the in-betweens of life where you don’t allow yourself to check your phone. Maybe a walk where you leave it behind or a whole morning where you keep it turned off. Anything to help push back the darting eyes, the constant scrolling, and the brain space we willingly sacrifice on the tiny, shiny altar of our phone screens.

Good decisions require creativity, and creativity requires space. This space is necessary for you to speak out against the

phones.

an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year without technology.

Rather than filling these times with sound, or holding on to the soul clutter by rehearsing past conversations or future possibilities, decide instead to let yourself be quiet inside the silence and see if your friend Jesus has anything to say.

In her book Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle says “our names are part of our wholeness. To be given a name is an act of intimacy as powerful as any act of love.”

Naming is powerful when it comes to people. But it’s powerful for other things as well.

Obviously, theirs is a lovely commentary on faith.

Maybe you need to spend a little time letting the darkness do what darkness does—nourish, strengthen, and hold.

Remember today is a plot point. See it honestly for what it is, but don’t confuse the moment for the whole story.

My first goal for this book is to help you have peace about the decisions you’ve already made and give you some direction about the ones causing you trouble.

But we can’t move forward unless we also confront the false narratives we have about God and allow him to tell us the truth.

(Ps. 23).

“You are loved with an everlasting love and underneath are the everlasting arms.” At that time in my life, her daily assurance of God’s everlasting love was a welcome mantra, one I embraced and repeated often.

Take some time to consider what you’ve come to believe about God. Then read Psalm 23 and see if your friend Jesus has anything to say to you today.

We’re ready to begin doing our next right thing.

What now? is not just a panic-stricken question tossed out into a dark unknown. What now? can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance. It acknowledges that our future is open, that we may well do more than anyone expected of us, that at every point in our development we are still striving to grow.

It was about coming alive. This transition has been for us slow, deep, and far-reaching.

His mind simply wouldn’t allow his heart to dream. Logic and limits often get in the way of longing. And longing is key to our growth.

It’s important to be able to answer the question What do you really want?

I remember telling people in the months following his return that it wasn’t so much that John had changed but more that he became more fully himself.

we began to cultivate a respectful curiosity for our mutual desire as a couple.

The decision is rarely the point.

it’s tempting to forget the uncertainty of the road that led us here. But if I could be so brave as to say it, the vocation is secondary for us.

Because provision also looks like support, like communication, like turning toward the people you love rather than away from them.

Laugh. Take a walk. Make some plans. Hold them loosely. Take notes along the way. And when you start to worry, don’t do it behind a closed door. Let someone in to sit with you without pushing them away.

When you catch a tiny glimpse of the future, be sure not to smother it with your own agenda. Let it breathe. Let it grow at a healthy pace. Admit it’s both delightful and terrifying. As you take your next right step today, trust that God won’t let you miss your own future. Follow the arrows.

In his book Hearing God, Dallas Willard shares that when he asks something of God—for direction or clarity in some way—he states it simply in prayer and then devotes the next hour or so to “housework, gardening, driving about on errands or paying bills,” things that keep his hands busy but his mind open.

pay attention not only to what’s happening on the outside but to what is moving on the inside. Look for arrows, not just answers.

Once you take the time to get honest about where you are, one thing you might uncover is this: you are a beginner. There’s nothing that insults our capable ego like realizing this. So what might be our next right step?

Don’t be afraid. Let yourself be a beginner. What would that look like for you today?

I'm really not Sure what this looks like for me today at all. I'm certainly a beginner at work, outside of college, and grownup life. There are a 107 of Things l still I I would like to and that I can learn about adulthood.

Embrace this unique time of being a beginner. Let him teach you what is right, what to say, and how to think.

beginning

SAY “I DON’T KNOW (YET)”

Your skin, hair, or digestive system is changing, and the way you care for yourself needs to change as well.

Jesus. Welcome him into these moments of being a beginner. He wants to be with you.

“There may be a lot of reasons for you to say no to this trip,” he said. “But please, don’t let fear be one of them.”

Once I named the fear, it lost a lot of its power, and so I found the courage I needed to say yes.

It was only after the decision was made that I finally felt confident in it.

It’s another thing altogether to create a storm in our head and then make our decisions based on a possible scenario that hasn’t even happened. That would be like naming the whole story as doomed before it had even begun. We can’t prevent storms from coming, but we can decide not to invent our own.

would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Knowing what she wanted was important, but knowing what she wanted more helped her to take her next right step.

If you don’t take the time to admit what you most long for, decisions will still need to be made. But instead of stepping forward in self-awareness, you’ll base your decisions on other outward things like expectations, habit, or some other kind of external pressure.

He didn’t give Bartimaeus a Bible verse, a lesson, or a lecture. He didn’t chastise him, shame him, or shake a divine finger in his general direction. He didn’t talk to the crowd, make an example, tell a heartfelt story, or pray out loud. Instead, Jesus asked blind Bartimaeus a question: What do you want me to do for you?

Ruth Haley Barton

“Jesus routinely asked people questions that helped them to get in touch with their desire and name it in his presence. . . . He often brought focus and clarity to his interactions with those who were spiritually hungry by asking...