Don’t Make that Decision…Yet

The candidate looks great on paper, her interviews were fantastic, the team loves her, what could possibly go wrong? How many times have you and I been there? I have my own personal stories of tragic endings from great starts and I’m sure you do too. Rarely, however, do I hear the stories of the business owner who went to God in prayer and sought His counsel before making a decision.

Often, most Christians ask God for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by posing a binary question and when they don’t hear a ‘no’, the assumption is it’s a ‘yes’! Of course, when things don’t work out, the assumption is that God’s will was actually a ‘no’ because maybe He changed His mind or maybe I misread something and we stop there only to repeat everything over and over again. But think about how double-minded this type of relationship with God can get over time. We’ll come back to this issue in another post.

So, back to the decision about the hire when all your boxes are checked off. Why bother checking in with God? The reality is that we live in a linear time and space continuum (Disclaimer: I may wander off into engineering/geek speak and will course correct; be patient with me). What this means is that we cannot know a future event that will affect us because the only visibility we have is in the present moment. Now, here’s where things get interesting, if you are a disciple of Jesus and actively pursuing your relationship (i.e., staying connected) with your Heavenly Father, God has made you a promise that illustrates something very important.

Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know. (Jer. 33:3)

The thing that gets me is that God is reminding us that there are things going on that we cannot possibly know nor have the capacity to understand unless He reveals it to us. Will this hire actually work out? Will this investment be a wise use of funds? Should we take on this project? There are so many outcomes to all of these binary questions that we cannot afford to limit our decision making to our logic, intellect or experience on a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It’s simply not enough. If this wasn’t enough, Jesus then encourages us to stayed tuned into what the Holy Spirit will provide:

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. (John 16:13)

Now, most of us are pretty smart and we can reason out a lot of stuff but I find it intriguing the one thing that no one can accomplish on this earth, regardless of their pedigree, is to bring the future into the present. Yet, even more amazing is that our loving Father simply invites us to ask Him and His promise is simple: He will answer us; He will tell us what is to come!

So, don’t make that decision just yet! Are you confident you’ve heard what your Father in heaven has to say? You might be thinking, I’m not sure if I would know if He’s speaking to me. How would we truly know the answer to this question? I will continue this line of thinking in a later post.