Big Choices
From the Series—Choices
November 11, 2003This evotional continues our Choices series.
A year ago I heard leadership guru John Maxwell speak at a conference I was attending and he said something that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. It’s one of those thoughts that seems to percolate. He said, “We only make a few major decisions. We spend the rest of our lives managing those decisions.” I think that means is this: we better make good choices especially when it comes to big choices because we’re going to spend the rest of our lives managing those major decisions!
Let me tell you why this series of evotionals is so important. Because as Erwin McManus says in his book Seizing Your Divine Moment, “The most spiritual activity you will engage in today is making choices.” He says, “All other activities that we describe as spiritual—worship, prayer, meditation—are there to connect us to God and prepare us to live. Choices chart the course and determine the destination.”
You are the sum total of the choices you make! Destiny is not a matter of chance. Destiny is a matter of choice. And that ought to be encouraging and empowering because as McManus puts it. “You’re just one choice from a different life.”
Here’s what I want to do with this evotional. I want to give you a dose of reality and then I want to give you a dose of theology. Let me start with a dose of reality.
Reality Check
I love the point blank honesty of Job 7:16. Job’s world comes completely undone financially, relationally, physically, and spiritually. And Job just says it like it is: “My life makes no sense.”
Every single person reading this evotional will at some point in their life feel what Job felt. No exceptions. Your life will not make sense. You’ll be blindsided by a doctor’s diagnosis or the police will come knocking on your door or your boss will leave a pink slip on your desk one day. And when it happens it will shake your confidence in God and your confidence in yourself. And you will feel what Job felt.
Listen to what Job says in Job 7:1. “How mankind must struggle. A man’s life is long and hard. How he grinds on to the end of the week and his wages. And so to me also have been allotted months of frustration and these long and weary nights. When I get to bed I think, ‘Oh that it was morning,’ and then I toss till dawn. My life drags by — day after hopeless day.”
Job hit rock bottom. And all of us hit rock bottom at different points in our life. And I don’t want that to be depressing. I want it to be reassuring. You need to know that you’re not alone. You’re not abnormal. You’re normal.
Dark Side
Everybody God uses in a great way experiences dark nights of the soul. A few weeks ago the Catholic Church beatified Mother Teresa. There was a fascinating article in the religion section of the Washington Times. The title was somewhat portentous: “Research reveals a dark side of Mother Teresa.” The article cited some of the dark seasons in Mother Teresa’s life where she felt abandoned by God. The reporter wrote, “Her exterior buoyancy masked an astonishing secret —known only to a small number of clergy counselors but no other close colleagues—that was revealed only through research for her sainthood candidacy.” The article went on to cite some of those secrets in her private writings. Here is one excerpt. “I am told that God lives in me—and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.” What I found interesting is that the author of the article seemed to think that we as readers would be shocked. The truth is that I wasn’t surprised at all. You can’t minister in the slums of Calcutta —surrounded by pain and suffering and poverty—and not be affected by it. You’re bound to experience “months of frustration” and “long and weary nights” and times when your life “makes no sense.”
Sometimes we fall into this fallacy that the more holy we become the less confusion and frustration we’ll experience. But it’s tough to read the book of Job and still hold that belief.
Job was “blameless” and “upright”—those are God’s words not mine. And God himself said, “There is no one else on earth like him.” Job was in a class by himself. He was the holiest man on planet earth at that time in human history! And my question is this: did his holiness equate to less confusion and frustration? The answer is “No.” It may not be what I want to hear and it may not be what you want to hear, but here is what I’m trying to communicate: maturity does not equal immunity. No matter how mature you become spiritually, you’re not immune to “months of frustration” and “long weary nights.”
Admission Ticket
Let me take it a step further. Maybe spiritual growth doesn’t result in things getting easier. Maybe it results in things getting tougher. Let me put in terms of decision-making since that’s what this series is about. I love Henry Kissinger’s perspective on success. He said, “Every success is an admission ticket to a new set of decisions.” And those decisions don’t get easier. They get harder. Success equals bigger and tougher decisions .
Think about it in political terms. A mayor makes decisions that primarily affect a city. A governor makes decisions that affect an entire state. And if you work your way all the way up the political ladder, a president makes decisions that affect the nation and the world. And all I’m asking is this: does it get easier or harder? Is it easier being a circuit court judge or a Supreme Court justice? Or for that matter, is it easier being a legislative assistant or chief of staff? The answer is obvious.
I think we need a reorientation. What is true politically is true spiritually. As God grows you spiritually and as your spiritual sphere of influence increases you’ll be put in situations where you’ll need to make bigger and tougher decisions. The stakes get higher.
The larger NCC becomes the harder it gets to pastor. There is exponential joy, but I also feel the cumulative responsibility and accountability of leading a growing staff and growing church. The choices aren’t getting any easier. They are getting harder.
The more kids you have the tougher it is to parent them. The wealthier you become the tougher it is to manage your financial portfolio because the stakes are higher. When you get that promotion or pay raise, the pressure to perform rises. Such is life.
So my prayer for you is this: I pray that you would be faced with bigger and tougher decisions because to me that is evidence of spiritual growth.
Fog
I saw Matrix Revolutions last week and the oracle said something pretty profound. “You cannot see past the choices you don’t understand.” Some of you want to know what to do next but you can’t see past the choices you don’t understand. You don’t know where a dating relationship should go. You don’t know whether to stay here or go there. You don’t know whether to go to grad school or switch careers or take early retirement. You’re not alone!
I love what John Eldredge says in Waking the Dead. “Twenty clear days a year —that sounds about like my life. I think I see what’s really going on about that often. The rest of the time, it feels like fog, like the bathroom mirror after a hot shower. I’d love to wake up each morning knowing exactly who I am and where God is taking me. Zeroed in on all my relationships, undaunted in my calling. It’s awesome when I do see. But for most of us, life seems more like driving along with a dirty windshield and then turning into the sun.”
Oswald Chambers was a spiritual giant. He wrote what is possibly the greatest devotional of all-time, My Utmost for His Highest. In his biography, Abandoned to God, Chambers says, “I never see my way. I never have far-seeing plans.” I’d love to have the twenty-year plan, but I’ve found that God typically leads me one step at a time. And he does it for precisely the same reason manna had a same-day expiration date: it forces us to live in day-by-day, moment-by-moment reliance upon Him.
I’ve always admired plotters —people who see the future. I want to be one of them. I want to be a vision-caster and strategic-planner. But I’ve come to admire plodders —people who keep putting one foot in front of the next through the tough times. You can knock them down, but they get back up and keep moving forward.
Paradox
Enough reality. Let me give you a dose of theology. It’s tough to talk about choices without talking about two theologies— divine sovereignty and free will. Theologians have been debating how those two theologies juxtapose for centuries and I’m not going to resolve the issue in one evotional, but let me give you a dose of theology because how you think affects how you act.
Job 11:6 is one of my favorite verses. “True wisdom has two sides.” I’m a both/and thinker because I believe that truth is two-dimensional. Some people see divine sovereignty and free will as contradictory theologies—if God is sovereign then how I can have free will or if I have free will then is God really sovereign? A one-sided perspective divides us into theological camps. But true wisdom has two sides.
I love Robert Johnson’s perspective on paradox. Johnson says that Scripture is full of two-sided truths. Heresy is simply paying attention to one side and ignoring the other. Johnson says, “When the unstoppable bullet hits the impenetrable wall we find religious experience. It is precisely here that one will grow.”
I want you to think of divine sovereignty as the unstoppable bullet. Think of free will as the impenetrable wall. Choices are made where these two theologies meet.
Let me tell my goal in writing this evotional and then we’ll dive into these two theologies. My goal is that you would have a heightened sense of destiny. I don’t think you can understand divine sovereignty and not have a profound sense of destiny. But I also want you to have a heightened sense of responsibility. I don’t think you can understand free will and not have a profound sense of responsibility.
Needlepoint
Corrie Ten Boom is one of my heroes. After watching The Hiding Place — a movie about her life—I put my faith in Christ for the first time.
Her family was sent to Nazi concentration camps during World War II because they family refused to sit by and watch Hitler kill the Jews. They hid Jews in their home. Her father and sister died in the camps, but Corrie survived.
She used to speak to audiences about her experiences, and she would often look down while she talked. It looked like she was reading her notes, but she was actually working on a piece of needlepoint. After telling her story of the cruelty in the camps and the death of her father and sister, Corrie would hold up the backside of the needlepoint. It was just a jumble of colors and threads with no discernible pattern. And she’s say that’s how we see our lives —sometimes it doesn’t make sense. Then she’d turn the needlepoint over to reveal the finished side. Corrie would conclude by saying, “This is how God views your life and someday we will have the privilege of viewing it from His point of view.”
If anybody could have said, “My life makes no sense” it was Corrie Ten Boom. Why didn’t God protect her family? They were hiding Jews and saving lives. I don’t have all the answers to those questions. What I do know is that somehow God used the suffering of a woman named Corrie Ten Boom living in Holland in 1944 to lead a five year-old boy named Mark Batterson living in Minnesota in 1975 to Christ.
50:20
In Genesis 50:20 Joseph looks back over his life—all the dysfunction and betrayal and injustice and pain —and says to his brothers who betrayed him, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
A few weeks ago I got an email from an NCCer who had what might be called a Genesis 50:20 moment —she saw the hand of God in the midst of some difficult circumstances.
Pastor Mark,
Since I’ve come to the DC area, I have been riding a roller coaster of highs (usually after church or small group) and extreme lows. I find that it is an everyday battle to remain optimistic and persistent in the face of unemployment, a painful romantic breakup, and family members who are ‘concerned about this church business’ I am becoming involved in. I am frustrated with God that things aren’t ‘going my way and on my time frame. ”
In dwelling on your sermon, I regained the strength to persevere when things are ugly and difficult. I can’t help but feel like God will use this experience I am going through so that I can later minister and encourage others who are in a similar situation.
When I read what she wrote I heard this “ding, ding, ding” noise in my mind’s ear because she gets it. This NCCer has discovered what I think is at the epicenter of divine sovereignty: every experience is preparation for some future challenge or opportunity! Another way of saying it is this: God is setting you up!
I quote Ephesians 2:10 as much as any other verse. It has been woven into the fabric of who I am. It says, “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works prepared for us in advance.” The word “prepared” comes from the oriental custom of servants going in front of the king and preparing the road ahead to make sure the king would have safe passage. God turns the tables. The King of Kings goes in front of his servants preparing the road ahead.
God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. I love the way Oswald Chamber said it. His motto was “Let God engineer.” Even in the most confusing and frustrating of circumstances, we need to have an unshakable confidence that God is setting us up.
A few weeks ago I wrote about fall-back positions. A fall-back position is your safety net —it’s what you to fall back on when your life falls apart. I have fall-back verses. Proverbs 16:9 is one of them. It says, “In his heart a man plan his course, but the Lord orders his steps.”
One more thought.
Oswald Chambers said, “As we obey the leadings of the Spirit of God, we enable God to answer the prayers of other people.” I love that perspective! I don’t think Chambers is over-spiritualizing. I think we’re guilty of under-spiritualizing. Chambers said, “Our lives, my life, is the answer to someone’s prayer, prayed perhaps centuries ago.”
The reason that perspective is so meaningful to me is that I had a grandfather who prayed for me. He died when I was six years old, but his prayers are still being answered twenty-five years later. There have been distinct moments in my life when the Spirit has said to my spirit, “The prayers of your grandfather are being answered in your life right now.”
Wildcard
I have a profound sense of destiny because I believe in the sovereignty of God. But I also have a profound sense of responsibility because I believe in free will. God has endowed us with the capacity to make choices. The theological term is free will. Here is how I think of it. Free will is the wild card in the deck of cards that God has dealt humankind. It is the human side of the equation.
Who you are is the result of the choices you make. I know that when I write something like that there is part of us that objects. What about the things that have happened to me that I had no control over? I didn’t choose my parents and they abused me. What about the boss who fired me or the friend who betrayed me or the spouse who left me? I didn’t make any of those decisions.
Let me say something that might be hard to hear, but you need to hear it. You still need to take response-ability. I’m not suggesting any of those things were your fault. They may be fobody’s nault. But that doesn’t change the fact that you are response-able. Here is what I mean by response-ability: it is the ability to choose your response in any set of circumstances.
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl writes about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. He said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” You can’t control what happens to you. But you can control how you react. And your reactions will make you or break you.
Irresponsibility
One of our core values is pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you. I think one of the dangers of destiny is that it can breed irresponsibility. We pray like it depends on God, but we don’t work like it depends on us. And the end result is that we pray lots of prayers we don’t need to pray. I’m convinced that we can answer half the prayers we pray! We pray for a need that we are capable of meeting ourselves or we pray that we would become more compassionate, but pass up opportunities to extend a helping hand to a hurting heart. And God must think, “Why are you praying about this? Just do it.”
I like the way Oswald Chambers says it. “We cannot do what God does and God will not do what we can do.” Don’t turn a sense of destiny into an excuse for irresponsibility. Keep praying like it depends on God, but start working like it depends on you.
Examine the Walls
When it comes to decision-making you’ve got to do your homework. One of the most difficult decisions in NCC history was deciding on a second location. We prayed like it depended on God, but we also came up with a matrix of seventeen factors that we took into consideration when we compared prospective theaters.
I love Arthur McKinsey’s description of how he approaches problem-solving and decision-making. “If you think of a problem as being like a medieval walled city, then a lot of people will attack it head on, like a battering ram. They will storm the gates and try to smash through the defenses with sheer intellectual power and brilliance.”
Arthur takes a different approach. “So I just camp outside the city. I wait. And I think. Until one day—maybe after I’ve turned to a completely different problem— the drawbridge comes down and the defenders say, ‘We surrender.’ The answer to the problem comes all at once .”
That seemed to be Nehemiah’s approach in Nehemiah 2:11. “I set out during the night with a few men. I had not told anyone what my God has put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. By night I went through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate examining the walls.”
Sometimes you need to get outside the city walls to solve problems and make decisions. Battering rams usually don’t work. Nehemiah had a vision from God, but he had to get the lay of the land. There are no cliff notes when it comes to decision-making. You’ve got to “examine the walls.”
The Third Temptation
Once you examine the walls you’ve got to make a decision. The worst decision is indecision.
I recently read Patrick Lencioni’s bestselling book The Five Temptations of a CEO. I found temptation three fascinating. It’s the temptation to insure that your decisions are correct. That seems like a good thing, but Lencioni delineates. He says, “It’s the temptation to choose certainty over clarity.” Some people fear being wrong so much that they wait until they’re absolutely certain about something before they make a decision.
One of our core values is everything is an experiment. We aren’t afraid of making mistakes. In fact, if we aren’t making mistakes we aren’t trying enough new things! You’ve got to overcome that fear of being wrong.
I think the three most powerful words you can say are “I love you.” But next to that, the three most powerful words you can say are “I was wrong.” And the only way you get to say those words is if you make a bad decision!
Theodore Roosevelt said, “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
Some people live in suspended animation —they try to avoid the anxiety of saying yes and the guilt of saying no by living in indecision. Make a choice!