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

by Emily P. Freeman

It doesn’t matter what the specific decision is. Unmade decisions hold power.

strong and unshakable kingdom of God. The decision is rarely the point. The point is you becoming more fully yourself in the presence of God.

“Our Western minds are trained to go down the path of explaining. We think if we can understand it, then we can control it.”

We are conditioned to believe the only reason we should do things is if we know why, where we are headed, and for what purpose. No wonder we have trouble making decisions. If we don’t have clear answers or sure things, then taking a big step feels like a risk at best and a wasteful mistake at worst.

Decisions shape our lives. But what we often overlook is not only how our choices shape outcomes but how they shape us too. They reveal our character and help to create our character.

What I’m finding to be most helpful more than any list, question, or sage advice is simply to get quiet in a room with Jesus on the regular, not for the sake of an answer but for the sake of love.

Becoming a soul minimalist does not mean that you should hold on to nothing but rather that nothing should have a hold on you.

We’re letting everyone else’s agenda live for free in the sacred space of our creative mind, and it’s time for an eviction. This space is necessary for ideas to form, for questions to rise up, for hope to weave her way into our vision for the future, and for the dots of decision to begin to connect in the quiet places of our mind and heart. Good decisions require creativity, and creativity requires space.

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

Part of me wished I was there on that deck, surrounded by the buzz and glitz and mystery. What would it be like to not only be on that boat but to belong there? To be invited, at home among the glamorous, sun-kissed, and rich? But then, as I lazy-looped my arm through John’s and we meandered our way back to our beach house, I realized that this life I live is someone else’s boat. They look and long and wish for this. And so do I, until I remember I already have it. That glamorous life doesn’t really exist, and the ones who chase it discover quickly, It isn’t really here. Whoever named the boat knew that. All this stuff is never enough, not really.

Rather than chasing more, what if we discovered enough right where we are?

we’re not gonna give her words. The critic only lives if we let her live. And I don’t mean the critic that is helpful and has your best interest at heart.

How would today be different or how would your next decision change if you refused to give the critic words?

What we hope will be life-giving turns out to be life-draining, one more decision we feel incapable of making.

And usually, the small things are simply arrows pointing to some bigger things.

You are allowed to choose something and you are allowed to change your mind.

One of the ways we punish ourselves for not being more or better or thinner or stronger is by trying to squeeze ourselves—force ourselves, even—into all kinds of ill-fitting relationships. With other people, with ourselves, with our pants. Leeana Tankersley, Breathing Room

I realized that the good girl in my head was a perfectly annoying mirage, and if I wanted to really know Jesus and be a sane person, I had to let go of my constant attempts at trying to earn acceptance and the ridiculous idea that I could perform my way into being loved.

We are not portioned-up and parceled-out people. We are whole: mind, body, and soul.

Open us up to a new way of practicing our life, then spin us back out into the world as people who know who we are. Surprise us with a joy we cannot explain. Give us the courage to show up as ourselves.

How might your posture toward your decisions change if comparison didn’t play a role at all?

We bring what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about God into every situation, gathering, and decision.

I once heard author Shauna Niequist say, “With people, you can connect or you can compare, but you can’t do both.”

It’s easy to believe the myth that we are in control, especially when we have a decision to make.

It’s about my continual insistence that I am in control of my own life. It’s about the endless pressure I put on myself to make the right choice, the best choice, at the right time. I forget or maybe never truly believe how often the best things that happen are, in fact, kind gifts that have nothing to do with me. My obsession with clarity and the quick fix blinds me to all the miraculous ways Jesus works in small surprises in the midst of the long haul—through people, through connection, through his body, the church.

God declares his glory in the light, but first he forms new life in the dark, bringing it to the surface in his own time and in his own way. God is with us in the light of day and in the darkest night.

Our next right thing will often be to wait. Give time to allow the clutter to clear. Create space for your soul to breathe. Make room for your desire to show up at the table. Begin to name the unnamed things.

It’s not a black-and-white world, which means decisions are rarely right or wrong. It doesn’t always matter which road you choose. What matters is God is with you.