Difficult decisions. I’ve had to make my share of them. If I’m honest, they have a tendency to paralyze me. I don’t want to do the wrong thing. So I seek God’s guidance through prayer, scripture and wise counsel. Sometimes I even fast. And if it’s hard enough… I get stuck there. After all that without any clear direction from God, I feel abandoned like the little boy whose dad never shows up at his ball games.
But I’m coming to believe that in being silent, God is really saying “It’s up to you Bryan, I trust you.” I’m coming to cast off the image of God as the cosmic micro-manager of my life and embrace him as my loving father. After all, if God wanted to be my micro-manager, he certainly could’ve created me without free will.
My own father just wants the best for me, not for me to have a certain career or buy a certain house or marry a certain person. To be sure, he wants me to make wise decisions, yet he trusts that he’s raised me to do that. He wants me to be happy, yet he doesn’t define happiness for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I do still use prayer, wise counsel, fasting, and searching the scriptures to define that my motives are pure, seek alternatives and set a course. After that, if I’m still at a loss what to do, I’m coming to the conclusion that God made me with a free will and trusts that I will do the best I can. And if not, that I’ll learn from my mistake.
I do still make mistakes. But with humility I ask God to show me where I went wrong and how to repair the damage. It’s how he helps me grow.