How to Make a Decision Before it Makes You
Making decisions can be hard. Whether it’s hash browns or toast with your breakfast order or choosing a paint color for your living room wall, decision making can leave you feeling like a deer caught in headlights. Frozen, eyes wide and mouth slightly open.
Of course, there are the little decisions we have to make every day, but what do you do when life throws a huge decision our way? To take the job or not?… To pick the right school for your kids…. To pack up your family and move across the country….
How do you navigate through not only the small, day to day decisions but the big ones too all while keeping your family and sanity intact?
Our family was recently challenged with one of those big-life defining sorts of decisions. My husband is a Pastor and for well over a decade now we have enjoyed church ministry and the sweet spot of family life that comes along with it. Life has been stable, predictable, and easy.
However, over the past year, we have felt a tug towards becoming full-time missionaries to the most diverse square mile in the world, Clarkston, GA. After almost a full year of going through the decision-making process and even in the midst of the global pandemic, we were able to make the biggest decision of our lives. It was not easy and it took a lot of work, but we were able to say YES to God with confidence. Pack your bags kids, we are moving South!
How we went about making this huge decision was a process for our family. Whenever we are faced with making a decision big or small, we filter it through a series of five points. Often, it brings clarity to the confusion we are feeling in the midst of the decision.
Here are the 5 points we process through:
- How does the decision affect our relationship with God and how does it align with His values and Word? (Psalm 119:105)
- How would this decision affect our list of family values? Does it make sense for us to do this as a family based on what we value most? (Deuteronomy 6:7)
- What are our trusted relationships saying to us about the decision? Are we seeking wise counsel from trusted people who love the Lord? (Proverbs 19:20)
- What am I sensing during my quiet times alone with God? Am I making prayer a priority and what do I sense He is saying to me about the decision? (Jeremiah 33:3)
- Are my spouse and I unified in our decision? (Psalm 133:1)
This series of questions has been a helpful tool to allow us to hold up each decision in light of how it aligns with each of the five points. As we do this, God not only aligned our hearts with His calling, but he often leads us through a process that provides peace and supplies courage.
When facing decisions having a series of points to process through as listed above can bring clarity to confusion. Let’s be families who model for our children how to bring decisions before the Lord in wise, strategic, and prayerful ways.
-Nicki Behnke
(More of Nicki’s writings can be found at reallifeinreverse.blogspot.com)
