On Making Decisions

i think it's interesting that we - people in general, not just Christian people - often don't like being told what to do in general. sure, we can usually handle "don't murder" without throwing a hissy fit, but when God presumes to dictate how we spend our sundays or when and with whom we have sex, we feel encroached upon.

yet, despite this, we want to know what we are supposed to do in specific instances - should i go to this concert with a friend or should i go to this other birthday party? should i marry this man? should i take this job offer? sometimes those are moral questions, but more often they are wisdom questions i think - and sometimes they are matters of preference.

i mean, obviously you shouldn't take the job offer if the job description involves swindling people out of their money. but most of our decisions don't look like that. it probably doesn't make much of a difference whether you go to the birthday party or to the concert - just pick one! so many women (and presumably men) are looking for "the One" when instead we should be looking for a certain sort of mate. i'm not advocating marrying someone just because they fit your little check-list, but i also think that the idealized idea of "the One" is poppycock and balderdash.

i think we have this tendency because it is much easier to just be told what to do than it is to become the sort of person who will make those decisions well. i'm not saying we shouldn't wrestle with decisions, or that they aren't hard, but that we should be about the business of growing wise and knowing Christ. the better we know Him, the more we will instinctively as well as thoughtfully know His heart - perhaps you should have gone to that birthday party out of love, because the honoree is having a rough time and you know being there will mean much to him. i still think that it's not a moral decision between good and bad, but that doesn't mean it's an irrelevant decision.

as Christians, we live beyond the law in a way - not that the law isn't important, but that there is much freedom in decisions that are beyond the pale of black and white. paige brown, one of my favorite speakers of all time, says it this way. say you are talking to a friend you haven't seen in a while, and you ask her how her marriage is going. she says, with great self-satisfaction, "great! you know, i haven't had sex with anyone else since we got married! i haven't done drugs, or stolen anything, or killed his mother!" you would look at her very oddly.

and you should. it's a good thing that she hasn't killed her mother-in-law, but the fact that her focus is there shows that something is seriously off with this woman. her obsession with her keeping of the law is depriving her of LIFE.

we aren't so different, i think.