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These practices are meant to help you explore not only what your next right thing might be but also where God is with you in your indecision. If you find that certain practices aren’t leading you closer to God, don’t do them. The goal is not to finish an activity. The goal is always union with God. ❍
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. I cannot promise your decision will be made with ease, but I can say that you’ll remember love is the important thing. And when you have a big decision to make, you need all the love and support you can possibly get. The only place I know to find that for sure is in the presence of Jesus.
Good decisions require creativity, and creativity requires space.
We confess we live distracted lives, and our insides often shake with constant activity. We have grown accustomed to ignoring our low-grade anxiety, thinking that it’s just a normal part of an active life. This might be typical, and it might be common. But let it not be normal. Instead of trying to figure out how to calm the chaos and hustle around us, we rejoice with confidence that we don’t have to figure our way back to the light and easy way of Jesus, because you have already made your way to us. We have your Spirit living within us, which means there’s hope for us after all. You invite us
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The story arc is joyful even when the people are broken.
Remind us that, in Christ, we live a narrative of joy.
what we believe about God informs every aspect of our lives, including our decisions.
Because there is almost always a gap between what we say we believe and what we actually believe. None of us are exempt.
Oh! He would have thee daily more free, Knowing the might of thy royal degree, Ever in waiting, glad for His call, Tranquil in chastening, trusting through all. Comings and goings no turmoil need bring; His, all the future: do the next thing.
When you close your eyes and imagine God, what is the first thing you see?
Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined. Ann Patchett, What Now?
We make better decisions by making decisions, not by thinking about making decisions.
Here is where we learned that desire often lives next door to grief inside the soul. Access the grief, and you wake up the longing as well.
Dallas Willard, in his book The Divine Conspiracy, says “the most important thing about you is not the things you achieve but the person you become.”2
That time of waiting and listening and not knowing what was next helped us shape our character, become more connected as a couple, and become less afraid of the next what now season to come.
provision doesn’t only mean money, and I know in fact you may be able to testify to that.
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.
It was the qualifier that was maddening.
When we look for courage elsewhere, remind us to turn to you instead. You have all the gumption and moxie we could possibly need. We accept our smallness in your presence. Replace our shame with laughter and our doubt with love. Teach us to begin again with joy.
Am I being led by love or pushed by fear?
We can’t prevent storms from coming, but we can decide not to invent our own.
It
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
A Chef’s Life.
I’ve learned to pay close attention to Jesus, specifically what he says and does but, maybe more importantly, also what he doesn’t say and doesn’t do.
In that moment, in the way God always does, he made the side of the road center stage.
All we know about Bartimaeus is he was blind, he called out to Jesus, and he answered the question that was asked. Jesus called this an act of faith. I wonder if the same is true for us? I wonder if stating our desire in the presence of Jesus is actually an act of faith?
You may continue to show up at a job not because you necessarily want to be there but because your deepest desire is to provide for your family, and that is truly what you want. At the most basic level, this is still an issue of desire. You want to provide, and so you choose to show up even when it’s hard. But here is perhaps the most important thing to remember as you begin to get honest about what you want: even if you don’t get what you want, knowing what you want can still be a great gift.
Desire is only toxic when we demand our desires be satisfied on our terms and in our timing.
When it comes to decision-making, in my experience the best time to decide what you want is before a decision is even on the table.
But a pro/con list has at least one major flaw: it assumes every line item weighs an equal amount, and we all know they don’t.
What was life-draining? What was life-giving?
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.
Rather than chasing more, what if we discovered enough right where we are?
what helped him to do his next right thing, was knowing that his Father was with him.
And he could only remember that as he spent time alone with his Father.
There’s a reason why God invites us to be still first: the stillness makes way for the knowing.
What is one next right thing you can do today? Because that’s all you can do anyway. You can only do one thing at a time.
Sometimes we need someone to remind us to simply be with what’s true without trying to change it, fix it, or put a spin on it to make it sound better or worse.
God speaks to us through the Bible, in prayer, and often through other people, but another regular way I know he speaks to me is the one way I have most often dismissed: through the voice that comes from within. The good news is I’m finally learning to trust that voice.
They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
God is less interested in where we end up than he is in who we are becoming.
That’s why one of the qualities I long to possess more of is presence.
Will you get paid for this? Are the expectations clear? Would you actually enjoy it? Is it something you’ve always wanted to do? Does it involve a meaningful partnership? If you were in a room of people and this was called out into the crowd, would you raise your hand to volunteer for it?
We are kingdom people and, in a real way, our time doesn’t belong to us; it all belongs to God. The problem is we’ve misunderstood what that means. Instead of being people who look within and discern where he is leading us, we look around and overcommit ourselves. When the whispers of our calling try to speak to us, we don’t have the time or the space to listen.
If this horse is dead, it’s time to dismount. Christine Caine
The critic only lives if we let her live.
But the trouble comes when we allow all critical voices to weigh the same amount.
the critiques to most seriously consider are the ones coming from those who believe in you.
The voice of the critic forces us to face our biggest fears and, in turn, listen hard for the voice of God.
