Biblical Decision-Making Podcast Episodes

Welcome to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Welcome, and it’s good to have you along. With me, I have Brother Arlan Miller. Arlan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Matt. It’s good to be here. I am Matt Kaufman. And the topic today is making decisions, Biblical Decision Making. 

Arlan, did you make any decisions today? Oh, about two dozen. All the time we make decisions. If we stopped and really thought about all the decisions we make, we might be surprised by the number. And sometimes decisions come easy for some folks and others, they come quite difficult. 

And some of us will ruminate over a decision and think through a decision over and over again. And some of us can make decisions fairly quickly. And it depends a lot, Matt, on the decision. You can be asking what restaurant do I go to? Or you can be talking about a decision like, where do I go to school and what job do I take? 

There is a variety of decisions that we make. Naturally for me, decisions come with angst. I’m just that type of person that can stew over a decision. What is it like for you? Usually that’s where I would fall too, Matt. I am going to think about all the consequences and the different variables, and it can paralyze me if I let it. I would go round and round with some of my students at school and they were all so anxious to be of age so that they could get a tattoo and I would go round and round with these kids. 

How do you decide the marking that’s going to be on your body? For the rest of your life. I mean, from a kid who’s 15 years old and will have that mark as a parent and as a grandparent. Right. And isn’t that funny? You can’t change that. I can hardly decide what to eat in the morning. Right. Or what clothes to put on, you know? 

Yeah. That’s why I have the same thing every morning so that decision is made to make it easy for myself. Absolutely. So, we’re going to talk about making decisions and biblical decisions. What is this not going to entail here today? You know what we are not going to do here, Matt, is we are not going to lay out a formula or a one size fits all scenario. 

We’re going to go through eight different principles, which will talk through biblically looking at this topic, but are principles that we can think through and talk through, but we don’t want to oversimplify it. So, it’s not a formula that we’re going to give so that at the end of this any decision you need to make is not going to fall out of an algorithm. 

Right. We don’t think that’s what the Scripture says. Right. And God is dynamic, isn’t he? I mean, there is not one size that fits all in the way he has talked to people throughout time. No, there is not. And you see great variability in the Scripture. Sometimes God is very clear in what he says. Sometimes there’s a large amount of faith involved and there’s a lot of unknown aspects involved. Sometimes there’s a burning bush, sometimes there’s a fleece that’s wet or a fleece that’s not wet or a still small voice. And often he’s unique in the way that he directs people.  

I mean, I can only think of one burning bush, one fleece. And that’s an extremely important point, Matt, because we like to judge history based upon the spectacular and say, well, God, just talk to me like you did there. Well, he did that one time in history for a purpose. That’s not a formula that you should expect every single time. 

So, we’re going to acknowledge right at the outset here that God works in many different ways and he has no doubt led you in decisions in a variety of ways. And so, we’re going to want to support that, but there are some basic principles that we want to point out. And we’re also going to talk about maybe some false assumptions. With each principle, we’ll have an inaccurate assumption that we’ll talk through where our thinking often gets off and can get skewed.  

Lead us in the first principle then Arlan. What’s principle one? The first principle we would say is to have an accurate concept of God, to view God correctly. How does that have any bearing on a decision? I think it’s critical. It’s a foundational piece, Matt, if you don’t understand and view God correctly, you will not think about him in the right context. Who is God? What is his character? Is he someone that is just around the corner waiting to bop you on the head if you make a wrong choice. Is he someone who’s going to bless us no matter what we do? Kind of an old grandfather type figure. What does the Scripture say about who God is? Is he concerned or caring, active, present in our lives, or is he distant and ambivalent, I think would bear out in a lot of the way that we might interact with him. 

Right. Jeremiah 29:11 says, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, sayeth the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end. Right there, God describes himself as one who is caring, involved, and active. What’s the incorrect assumption that’s often made in this area? I think an incorrect assumption often can be that we think the decision is all important. I’ve got to get the right answer. So do tell if the decision’s not all important. What is important, Arlan? I mean, that’s the whole point, right? God would view this as the decision-making process is all important. Yeah. Our decision-making process is a huge catalyst in character formation. 

Walking through that process is what God is concerned about. So, the image that comes to me when you say I’ve got a decision to make. Let’s suppose you had an envelope with the answer to that decision that I’m praying about. I desperately want to take that envelope, rip it open, and have my question answered, and my decision settled. 

But you’re suggesting that God doesn’t hand out those envelopes for this reason. Exactly, Matt. Sometimes the process itself teaches us so much. We learn so much wrestling through a decision-making process. Maintaining faith in God through a decision-making process is a huge part of our spiritual growth. 

So, he is going to use the decision-making process as a way to sanctify and grow us as believers. So, trying to get out from underneath the decision-making process is likely not in step with what God’s will is for us. Correct. Matt? You know, I think also Arlan as we look at God and maybe part of us being made after his image is the ability to decide. 

I mean, isn’t that part of the story of the tree? And from the very beginning we see decision making as being part of who we are, and we see God giving us the ability to make decisions. That provides a lot of context, I think, for our conversation as we talk about decision making, that it finds its identity and its creation in God and his desire for us to worship him, to honor him, and to have communion with him.  

Let’s move on to the second principle. The second principle, Matt, would be that God’s word is foundational. So, the accurate concept of God is critical. And the second piece then is putting our faith and our trust in the truth of God’s Word and what he is saying. So, it makes logical sense that we would say that an accurate concept of God, that he is present and caring is first a prerequisite and then a derivative of God speaking. God is saying something. So now I’m going to tune into what God says. So, where do we find what God says? 

We look into his Word. You know, 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17 says that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God might be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all goods works. If you look at the language there how God has defined his Word, he says it’s perfect that we can be thoroughly furnished unto all goods works, and we need to rest on that, Matt. 

We need to use that as the foundation of our decision-making process. I want you to help me a little bit with this Arlan. I understand now that the Scriptures are God’s Word but I’m thinking about what job I’m supposed to do. Right. And to my knowledge that question is not answered in Scripture or am I wrong with that? 

Well, and I think actually the desire to open up and find the perfect answer can actually lead to some confusion and actually incorrect assumptions at times. I view it this way, Matt, if you think of a field or an open area with a fence around it and view that as the bounds of God’s Word within that open area, God has created rules and boundaries by in which we are to abide. But within that open field, there’s a lot of latitude. There’s a lot of open, some freedom, you might say. Freedom? Sure, that’s a great word. So, you’ll find things that are clearly outside of the fence or outside of the boundaries, and you’ll find a lot of things that are inside it. 

So, take the example of a job. You’re trying to decide what job to take. Well, there are certain jobs that would probably fall outside of the bounds of what God would desire according to the principles of his Word, so they might violate Scripture. Sure. For example, being a bartender or something like that might not be in step with God’s Word. 

You have a hard time finding support of that in God’s Word, as opposed to the 25,000 million jobs that are inside the bounds of God’s Word. Well, you just read my mind because there’s a great deal. Now that I’ve ruled out a small subset, how does the Word help me in this case? That’s the part where if you’re seeking a specific little dot, that can become difficult. 

And that leads, Matt, directly to that incorrect assumption. Sometimes we have this assumption that there’s only one person to marry and only one right job and one right house and one right school and one right car to buy. And now I need to stop you right there, Arlan because you’re not suggesting that there are two right people to marry, am I right? Yeah. Let me be clear about that. I’m not suggesting that there’s two right people to be married, but what I am suggesting is that sometimes we’re looking for more specific clarity than God asks us to, and we treat this as a bit of a riddle to solve. 

So, this envelope with the answer to my question has one name on it. And that name is the company that I’m supposed to work for or that is the address of the house that I’m supposed to buy. And my objective in the decision-making process is to track down God and solve this riddle. And that is not necessarily what we should be thinking about decision making. 

Is that true? In the freedom that God gives us within the bounds of his Word, we are to be thinking about how to make a good decision and then live according to his principles within that decision. If you buy the house across the street versus the house right there, God’s commandment is to love your neighbors and to serve them no matter which house you have and to be thankful. 

The Word directs us in many ways, but there are bounds. We’re not to buy above our means and we are to live according to our means and things along those types of lines. And would this purchase allow me to serve? Will this purchase aid, the gospel ministry, whether it be in my family or in my community, right? 

So right there is it safe to say that God probably has some leaning or some direction in terms of this field that I have freedom in, that I can expect even within this field, God to direct me towards some choices? Yes. And let me be very clear here on another aspect of that. And there are times in life when I think that most of us will have very specific leadings from God. 

We’re not trying to put God in a box and say, he only works this way, or he never works this way. But what we are saying is that he usually gives a fair amount of freedom within that decision-making process. You know, part of what I think we celebrate when we celebrate God’s Word, and its sufficiency is that it’s perfect in everything that it contains but also is perfect in everything it doesn’t contain. That seems strange that there is nothing that should be in the Scriptures that is not in the Scriptures. And so that those seemingly gaps or points that frustrate us because we wish it maybe said a little bit more about this or that are there by God’s design. Can I conclude that? 

I would conclude that. How does that fit in then to his overall purposes in a decision-making process with the Scriptures that are not maybe as replete or answering all of my questions or checking all of my boxes that I wish it would? I think it’s going to push us towards the issue of faith, Matt. 

Okay. And I think it’s going to push us towards growth through faith. I think another piece too with that is just making sure we are using Scripture accurately and interpreting it accurately. Scripture is sometimes very, very clear, and Scripture is sometimes cloudy. So, to bring some light to that when you say clear and cloudy, you might be saying that there are some passages that are difficult to understand. 

There are passages in Daniel and other places that are clearly a mystery to understand and maybe I should handle those parts of Scripture a little bit more delicately than the 10 Commandments, for example. The clear principles of the 10 Commandments or the Proverbs. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. When it comes to decision making to have a little bit of that clarity. Is there more to say about interpreting Scriptures? I think you mentioned context. Sure. Say more about that. I think that those ideas lead to the idea of taking Scripture in context. 

Often, we can find ourselves wanting almost that vending machine view of the Scriptures or that vending machine view of God that if we just flip it open, we’ll find the exact perfect thing and we hear stories where sometimes God seems to have worked in that way, and I believe that in some cases he has. 

But we also hear stories where we can get in trouble by overdoing that. Sure. So that’s something where we would want to be very careful and respectful with God’s Word. And you know what helps me though with that whole concept, now that I understand that biblical decision making is about my growth and sanctification, I can see maybe why God wouldn’t necessarily want me just to flip open the Scriptures or grab that envelope. 

Right. It’s too easy an answer. Really, all I’m interested in is the answer at that point and not about God and about the relationship. Arlan, thank you for leading us through these first two principles and we look forward to future conversations as we further unpack biblical decision making. 

I would like to draw our listeners’ attention to our website, accounseling.org/decisionmaking. And there you’ll find resources on decision making. You’ll find some of the content that we’ve shared here today, and we’ll continue to share. It will provide a little bit more help, provide a little bit more detail to some of these concepts. 

So, thank you for being with us and again, we hope that you join us in future episodes. 

Welcome back to Breaking Bread. Arlan and I are picking up with a conversation on biblical decision making. In our last conversation, Arlan, we talked about the importance of having a proper view and understanding of God and his creation as it gives rise to biblical decision making. The second principle was the importance of his Word in defining the space that we choose and make decisions out of. 

And we’re going to move on from there. Tell us what the principles are here for this episode and then let’s go through them. Sure. Matt, this episode we’re gonna talk through three more principles, praying for direction, trusting and having a surrendered heart, and waiting on God’s timing. 

So, let’s start right then with praying for direction. I think this is a little bit of a, a no brainer in terms of a believer. We’ve been taught from young to pray about things. So, what definition or detail can you provide maybe above some of those rudimentary concepts? And you know, when you think about this, we say, well, isn’t that the first one? 

And you could build the argument that should be the first principle. But we also would say it’s very important to have an accurate concept of God and to have the word as a foundation so you’re praying correctly. Because often we can pray just wanting something. You know, James says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him of ask of God that give it to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. 

And I think that’s a great foundational verse to be thinking about as we pray. James also talks about praying and not getting things because we are praying amiss. So exactly to your point, are we praying for a thing or are we praying for wisdom to know God? It is a mystery, isn’t it?  

Arlan, why does prayer work? How does it work? You know, do we really move the heart of God when we pray? And some of those questions are pretty deep and we’re not always given clear answers in the Scriptures, but we see examples, don’t we? Matthew clearly says, ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Everyone that asks receives. But then we also see passages in Scriptures like Habakkuk, a minor prophet that prayed earnestly, Lord, how shall I cry? And how long? And you won’t hear, basically he’s saying. But at the end of the book, he has shifted his mind, and he rejoices in the Lord, even though it doesn’t seem like he’s always answered his prayer as he had requested. So the prayer that he engaged in, while he had maybe a clear objective when he started in havoc, somehow through the course of that prayer may have changed, and God used that prayer as a way of changing him or drawing him. 

Often the purpose of prayer is to change us and to mold us and to conform us, and that leads us to the incorrect assumption that we can have with this principle. You know, we can believe that if we just had more faith, God would answer according to my desires. If I just had more faith, I would get what I wanted. 

And I need to pray a little harder or try a little deeper, to make it there. And so, you’re saying that is an incorrect assumption. That’s not true. Think about Christ, the Son of God. He prayed earnestly in the garden that you know, if possible, let this cup be removed from me. And that was not God’s will. 

You know, Psalm 37 says, delight thyself in the Lord, and he’ll give you the desires of your heart. And that word delight, if you go back and the Hebrew talks about a flexibility. It talks about being moldable, being shapeable. And if we let our delights be molded to what God wants for us, we find that we receive the desires of our heart. 

Certainly, Christ had all faith and yet he was told no. That was the last time we saw him despair or despondent approaching the cross. It was like it out of that prayer came resilience and settledness. He was able then to walk the road to the cross alone and to your point in the last episode about the decision-making process being about the process and not the end decision. God wants to engage us and what better way to engage us, but in this communion and in prayer.  

Now let’s go on to the next topic, because I think that fits having a trusting or surrendered heart. He wants us to have a heart of faith, and that is part of the growing process and decision making is working and perfecting our faith. 

How is that done here? It’s done through trusting and surrendering ourselves to God sometimes over and over and over again, and often we view this decision-making process that if we have enough faith, we will have certainty again. That is not how I would view it. Faith is trusting God through the uncertainty. 

You know, in the middle of 2 Corinthians 5, Paul has this little parenthesis where he says, for we walk by faith and not by sight. A foundational lens of the believer’s life is walking by faith. And you’re saying that’s not necessarily by sight in the sense that we know affirmatively, conclusively that this is what I must do. As much as we want to have our certainty in a thing, you know that envelope that you mentioned, that I am certain what the answer is within that. I don’t believe you’ll usually find that, but you can have absolute certainty in God and in his character, and that is what God is most concerned in. 

Put your faith in him and trust and surrender and say, God, I don’t know. I’m acting on faith, but I know you and I put my faith and trust in you and your character. That provides a lot of help to me. As I reflect even on my life, I find that my vision is very clear in the rear-view mirror. Sure. I can look backwards and say, wow, God did want me to do that. Wow. God did want that to be but when I was going through it, the house, the job, I don’t know, you could have almost talked me out of it. Hindsight’s always 2020. Yeah. You know, it’s like you’re climbing that mountain and all you see is the path and the very limited vision in front of you. 

But every once in a while, and this is healthy practice, look back and see where you’ve come from and the provision that’s happened throughout that journey that’s taken place. And that is the faith that we have. And this is a lot of hope as it comes to making decisions and that we don’t necessarily need to be a hundred percent certain, we need to always walk by faith, and that uncertainty is the cradle of faith and the reason why this is working because of the previous principles. 

Because I’m in communion in prayer because I am in God’s Word, because I understand God’s attributes that allows this faith to be possible. What’s the fifth principle? And that leads us right to the fifth principle of waiting on God. And it’s much easier to wait on a God that you have faith in. You know, Isaiah 40:31 is a familiar verse, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.  

I’d stop you right there, Arlan, because I find that verse to be a huge paradox. They that wait upon the Lord shall be renewed. Is that what it says? That’s what it says. Because often this waiting game can actually be a time of restlessness or a time of discouragement. And so, help redeem this concept of wait. And I think that view of waiting is based upon this incorrect assumption that waiting is doing nothing. If you go back again to Psalm 37:7 says, rest in the Lord and wait patiently on him. And you go back to the roots of that word. Wait there, it’s talking about spinning like a top.  

You know, my son loves school buses right now, and he knows when the school bus goes by our window like clockwork. And he will sit there and look out that window and he will be expectant and spinning in a good way, waiting for that school bus to come. He’s confident it’s coming, so his waiting actually fuels and renews him because he knows it’s coming, that faith component. And the longer he waits, the more renewed he is on the coming of the school bus. Very much so. That makes a lot of sense too, in terms of that our waiting then should not be necessarily stationary or complacent. But it should be filled with activity. What are some of the activities that we could fill our wait with? Sure. And the Scripture’s clear full of them. You know, let’s give a specific example. Someone has put a proposal in or is waiting on that kind of activity to happen. Fill your life with the activities that you know. 

Be diligent in loving God and your disciplines around that. Be diligent in loving your neighbor, as the Scripture says as yourself. Be diligent in your family relationships and be purposeful in relationships with nieces and nephews and so on and so forth. Good activities, which are building the character, which will help you fulfill what God would want for you in your life no matter what the outcome of that specific decision might be. 

I really like that. And to put it this way, Arlan, if you are waiting on a marriage, ask God, who should I be loving now? Right? If I’m waiting on an occupation. We should be asking what can I be active in and working at now? And the Scriptures are very complete and provide a great deal of direction on these things, right? 

If I’m waiting for an answer if I am supposed to go in the mission field, who should I be serving now and allow our wait time to be filled with that renewing activity. Because there’s a critical component there. Because if you cannot serve and minister in the local environment, you won’t automatically flip a switch and be able to do that in the mission field. 

If you can’t love your family in the environment now you won’t flip a switch and do that when you’re married to a spouse. Great. So now I can see, again, going back to that larger picture, that God wants to grow us through the decision-making process. And I can see how these principles support that larger context. 

So, we’re going to finish this discussion in the next episode. We have three more principles and incorrect assumptions. And to our listeners as we close here today, we hope this has been helpful just to review. We talked about how important prayer is, how important faith is, and how important waiting is in the decision-making process that God uses to grow us and to glorify himself. 

So, I hope that you can join us in upcoming conversations. 

Welcome back to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. We are going to finish up a conversation that Arlan Miller and I have started, and that is regarding biblical decision making. And we’ve talked about a number of different principles. And to review them quickly, we talked about having a proper understanding of God, understanding and respect for his Word and going to his Word as we make decisions. 

We talked about the importance of a prayer of faith and of waiting as it regards the decision-making process. Arlan, where do we go from here? Three more principles we’ll talk through today, Matt. Seeking wise counsel, walking with God, and acknowledging God’s sovereignty through the decision-making process. Let’s start with that sixth principle, seeking wise counsel.  

And I think I know what you mean by that in terms of in a multitude of counselors, there’s wisdom. I would presume that is what we’re speaking of here. It is, and it’s also laying out this idea of where the counsel comes from. Counsel comes from the Word, and it comes from others speaking the Word into our lives. 

Poor examples in Scripture were false prophets and others, so we need to handle this one with care, don’t we? We do. You need to make sure that the counselors you are seeking wisdom from are the right counselors. And there are things to be thinking about in that regard. You know, are they wise? Are they experienced? Can they speak to a situation? Are they just going to be yes men or yes women that tell you what you want to hear? Or are they going to actually be able to point out those blind spots in your life? For each of the previous principles, Arlan, we’ve identified an incorrect assumption that people often have that kind of foils the decision-making process. 

What would it be here? Matt, in this situation, the incorrect assumption is that in decision making, we either use faith or we use wisdom. And when I think we can fall into this trap is we can say it’s got to be all faith over-spiritualized almost, you know, and we can get into this trap where we start to see these coincidences as being signs from God. 

We’ve got to have this specific sign, and we can start to over interpret things. So, I might have a decision before me. And I might have some thought processes that say, you know what, this makes sense. But if I’m leaning too far on that continuum towards the faith, I might be saying, well, I can’t trust myself, or I shouldn’t allow logic to enter into this decision because that would not be of God. And you’re saying that’s not true? That’s what I’m saying, Matt. And I’m also saying in that kind of a situation, you can start to read into things like a song is given off in church and just because of that, suddenly that becomes the sign that you are supposed to take this action and move across country with whatever. 

We don’t want to say that it never happens, but at the same time, we want to keep it in balance with this idea of wisdom and counsel that can come from others. There’s a role that logic can play, that wisdom and input from others can play. Now you can overdo that as well, that if it doesn’t make logical sense, if you can’t cross every t and dot every i and have absolute assurance of the logic of something, you won’t make a decision. 

The truth is in the middle. You need to balance faith and wisdom. And God uses both the logic and the mind that he has given us. He expects us and wants us to employ that and allow that to bear its influence on our decision making, but also faith in him and faith without sight. 

And so, both of these are not in competition, but in agreement. Let’s move on to the next principle. The principle was, I believe, walk with God. There is a beautiful passage in John 10 where it talks about Christ being the shepherd. He says in verse 27, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 

It’s just a great little passage and imagery there of following behind the steps and the voice of the Master. I think that image is a very powerful one. Certainly, the lambs and the sheep make all sorts of decisions in the course of a day simply by following. Right. They took forks in the road. They went down this path or that path. They made very wise decisions, but largely because the Shepherd made it for them and they were following. And are you suggesting that when we follow the Savior, some of our decisions come out of a walk with Jesus? Yeah.  

The incorrect assumption can be that determining God’s will has to be this very difficult process. I will contend that’s relieving because many decisions made on a daily basis are just made out of a natural, obedient walk with Christ. And you know, you paint a picture that I just absolutely love and would have that to be my heart and my life, that I would make decisions simply because I’m walking with Jesus and his thought processes are my thought processes. 

Probably I should say my thought processes are his thought processes and because of my communion with him. And we find ourselves making decisions that are biblical. And right and wise, according to his Word, and it becomes natural in that sense. It does, and it is part of that process of growing up in him, as we see in the Scripture, as we become regenerated more and more like Christ, the right decisions often become most obvious. We’ve used an illustration in past episodes about an answer being an envelope of the decision that we want to make, and sometimes we fixate on that decision, and we allow a lot of other decisions to go under the radar. And I’m thinking about those natural decisions about being angry. 

How should I deal with that anger? You know, these are decisions that I often don’t think much about. I either yell or I have a soft answer, or I am hurt by somebody. Am I going to love or am I going to hate, as a result of that hurt? These are daily interactions, daily decisions that frequently go completely unnoticed because we’re fixating on those larger decisions. 

But all this, I think, comes to bear with walking with Jesus. It does, Matt. And you know, the beautiful thing about this too is I can think of several times in my life where I may have been fixed on one of those big decisions and just can’t seem to get to a point of knowing what I should do in a certain case. 

And as I have walked with Christ and just being faithful and the thing that is right before me, suddenly out of the blue in God’s timing and in his way, the answer becomes obvious. We can overfocus on things sometimes when all God is saying is just faithfully follow me in the thing that is right in front of you, and that is such an exciting moment because then you know that the Spirit of God is in you and actively working through you. 

What I really like about the action of this one, Arlan, is at some point in time, it’s time to walk, isn’t it? It’s time to make a decision. I’ll never forget a brother in Bloomington Church grabbing me by the lapel of my suit when I was in a point of decision on a number of things. And he said, God’s not going to direct a vehicle that’s not moving. 

And his message to me was, you’ve got to get this thing out of park, and we’ve got to move and allow God to direct. And at some point, we’ve read, we’ve prayed, we’ve sought counsel, we need to walk and walk in faith. And Matt, you know, that leads us directly to the last principle. Principle number eight, acknowledging God’s sovereignty. 

There’s a verse that we like to quote, Romans 8:28. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose. It’s a great verse. It’s a very true verse, and it helps answer one of these incorrect assumptions that we can have with this principle, this idea that if I make a wrong choice, suddenly I’m on God’s plan B! 

Yes. I think that’s very pervasive, right? We get stuck in a point of indecision because, well, I don’t want to make the wrong decision, and if I’m in the wrong decision, well then God answers my prayers last. He says, well, I’m going to put Matt in a completely different category here, right? 

I’ll take care of plan A people first. Do plan A people, then plan B people get the leftovers, and that’s just not true, Matt. It’s paralyzing. It can be. Right. And if you look through Scripture and just look at this theme throughout Scripture, God delights in taking our failures and turning them into something so much better than what we could even imagine. 

Yeah. What are some examples of that? Sure. I mean, one of the first ones that pops to my mind is Peter. Peter denied Christ three times. Bad decision, bad decision. And yet God built his church upon this man. As he repented and moved on from there. We think of Adam eating the apple. Bad decision, bad decision, and yet God had that under control. 

He had a plan laid out to take care of that. We think of Paul and Barnabas having a dispute over John Mark. Bad decision, bad decision. But God took that and there were two missionary journeys instead of one. God in his sovereignty is able to take our bad decisions and work them for good. See, that just makes me smile. 

Arlan, I enjoy playing chess. Sure, I’m not necessarily good at it, but I think what the picture and the image that you paint here is bad move. Because I’m very, very familiar with bad moves. That was a bad decision. This is a bad decision, but God being the master chess player can swing the board around at any position and play the game out and win it. There is no positioning of him that he is not able to overcome and not only just overcome but wield it for good and his glory. And this brings a great deal of hope. When it comes to decision making and it also hearkens us back to the very beginning where we talk about what is the purpose of decision making. 

The purpose of decision making is the character formation process that God puts us through. It’s an opportunity for us to be conformed to the image of Christ as it alludes to in Romans 8:29, the sister passage to Romans 8:28. It’s about how this situation can make me more like Christ. And as we review those principles here in closing, we can see now why God allows us to struggle with decisions and kind of keeps that envelope with the answer out of our grasp. 

And he allows us then in this decision-making process as he draws us to himself, calling us to believe in him, calling us to read his Word, calling us to commune with him in prayer asking for us to employ our faith in trust and to wait patiently for him to seek wise counsel to walk and be active and then rest in his glory and his power to redeem all things to himself. This provides, I think, a wonderful framework for decision making. And you know, Matt, I couldn’t agree more. It provides this great comfort in knowing that as we walk through this process, which can be difficult and very trying at times, we can have confidence in the one that we can put our faith in. And knowing that he is working in and through us throughout this entire process.  

Arlan, we have resources, don’t we? We do. We’ve talked through a lot of different things in a very fast paced manner, but go to accounseling.org/decisionmaking, and you’ll find a host of resources on this topic that you can use to go into further depth on your own time. 

Thanks for that. And to our listeners we’re going to sign off now. Thank you for being with us. We trust that this has been helpful for you, and the bread of life has been broken, and that’s our objective here with Breaking Bread. So, until next time, we wish you the Lord’s blessings.