Decisions

Decisions.

And the tensions involved in making decisions.

“Grace to you and peace 

from God our Father 

and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ephesians 1:2

Mmm.  Grace and peace.  Take a bite of that and let it melt in your mouth and savor it like a piece of smooth chocolate as it spreads across your palette and sinks into bliss as you digest it.   Allow the flavors of grace and the texture of peace to be held by you, they are gifts from God our Father, and from Jesus.  What do grace and peace feel and look like to you?  

I love how Paul always writes "grace and peace" before and at the end of his letters.  They are great reminders of what is true and ours.  Grace is unmerited favor, every sinner's access to God, and peace is that which surpasses our ability to make sense of a situation that we somehow have resolve in.  

So, tonight I want to offer these two gifts to you from God our Father and Jesus our Lord if you will take them and own them as yours.  I do.   I live off of grace and peace everyday, without which I would not be here.  And without which I would never be able to make or own any of my decisions in life. 

Decisions in life face us all the time.  

What to wear?

Which school to apply to?

Where to go?

Who to see?

What to do? 

Which job to pick?

When to move?

Where to start?

Who to marry?

When to have kids/adopt?

Which house to buy?

When to retire?

When to end something? 

And sometimes we have decisions that come with greater tensions, because they feel more important.  Tensions or anxieties or pressure in a decision reveal something about us.  They reveal what's important to us and the implications of making a "wrong" choice that we think are there.  For example, why do we feel tension about deciding which school to go to or which career to choose?  One might say it's because we want to secure our futures, but can we secure our futures?  Who can guarantee that the school or career you choose will be that fulfilling anyway?  Is it the money that tells us so?  The image or reputation that says so?  Your parents?  Tension reveals our expectations.  What do you expect from your decision?  

Okay, I'm gonna take a step back from the analyzing and just let my thoughts flow as in my prayers.  

I've made decisions in the past based on fear, fear of missing out, fear of being rejected or disliked, fear of losing an image I worked to portray, fear of rocking the boat/confrontation, fear of failing, fear of the unknown, fear of being judged, fear of being exposed, and so on.

But as my relationship with God has been nurtured in grace and peace, amidst all my mistakes and weaknesses, I have been learning to make decisions, not based on fear (especially fear of being wrong), but rather, based on grace and peace.  I search for grace in my mistakes, and for the peace that surpasses my reasoning for why I should be okay with a decision.  Sometimes, or most times, there is no reason in the concrete sense of "this will likely lead to this, so it makes sense that I should feel okay"....but instead it's a peace based on God knowing my needs and my weaknesses, and that's it.  He knows me.  Even when everyone else might question me or judge me or even reject me, I find a peace that surpasses my ability to make sense of things because I can love them even when I'm rejected, and yet I can rest assured that my decision is my decision, and not just my decision but a decision that God allowed me to make because He loves me.  

Every decision is mine, and each one is made with God's grace and His peace.  I have been through years of hearing that I'm selfish or that I'm so nice and good, and these "images" put on me by others or my parents or my closest friends have hurt me, matured me, as well as encouraged me, but all of their words to me were never without the power of God's love to me.  He allowed me to hear everything, to be bullied in the 7th grade, to be rejected in 10th grade by a boy, to hear that I'm a quitter or that I sing well or that I'm pretty or fat, all of which have been said in order to bring me to this place of asking God what His image in me truly is.  Not to say that what people say about me is necessarily wrong, but to emphasize that what God says about me is absolutely true.  It is true that at times I am selfish, and people can observe that, but it's also true that God says I am good and righteous because of the blood of His Son shed for me.  To undermine the latter in order to preserve the former is pure ridiculous!  Is it more true that I'm a sinner or that I'm saved?  I am both, yes, but who am I ultimately, eternally?  I am saved, and I don't think so in order that I can sin more, but I say so because God says I am.  I'm just saying God says something, and I believe His Words over anyone else's.  Does that make me feel less guilty about my past sins, yes, does that guilt free feeling convict me to sin more or less?  If you have never tasted God's grace I wouldn't be able to convince you that it gave me the intensity to give up everything in this life to know Him more.  (In other words to sin less.) 

Read the Words of God and realign what you know about the truth about yourself: 

“For He chose us in Him, 

before the foundation of the world, 

to be holy and blameless in His sight. 

In love 

He predestined us 

to be adopted through Jesus Christ 

for Himself, 

according to His favor and will, 

to the praise of His glorious grace 

that He favored us with in the Beloved. 

We have redemption in Him 

through His blood, 

the forgiveness of our trespasses, 

according to the riches 

of His grace 

that He lavished on us 

with all wisdom and understanding.

We have also received an inheritance in Him, 

predestined 

according to the purpose of the One 

who works out everything 

in agreement with the decision of His will, 

so that we 

who had already put our hope in the Messiah 

might bring praise to His glory.”

-Ephesians 1:4-8, 11-12

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 Do your decisions bring praise to His glory?  

Or do they bring tension to yourself?  

What is the tension about in your decision?  

Do you fear that you could be capable of making the wrong decision so that God's plans get thwarted?  

Are you so mighty to stop God from being God?  

My point is that the tension isn't bad, it's just an indication that you are focusing on yourself.  Tension is meaningful if you can let it allow you to open up your heart to God and bring you to a place of receiving grace and peace to the praise of His glory!  At times, God has used my seemingly "wrong" decisions for very great and awesome outcomes.  I was allowed to mess up so that I could taste real grace and be amazed and awed.  I was allowed to isolate myself, a decision that lead to deep loneliness, so that I would be shown the specific need for love and then hunger more and more for it beyond the kind that others could realistically give me, which lead me to want God's love so badly.  So certainly.  So daily.  

I made choices to move to Nashville, to go to theology school, to date a non-Christian, to take a stand against my parents about certain things, to teach the youth group at my church, to let myself be sad until I was drenched in tears, and to become friends or spend time with certain people and not with others.  I made these decisions, and it wasn't about whether they were wrong or right or if they made me a wrong or right person.  They were made in full view of God who loves me so much that He would give His Son to die for me.  Each one of my decisions had a degree of tension prior to my making them, but looking back now I see that all along God was with me in each one guiding me to this place:  this place of seeing and knowing Him who is so good that I cannot help but praise Him!  Regardless of if I fail or if I disappoint others or if I get rejected or if I fall back into my old ways, He is there and His perfect love casts out all my fears.  My decisions become fearless, while my love for God and others abound.  

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I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

the glorious Father, 

would give you 

a spirit of wisdom and revelation 

in the knowledge of Him. 

I pray 

that the perception of your mind 

may be enlightened 

so you may know 

what is the hope of His calling, 

what are the glorious riches of His inheritance 

among the saints, 

and what is the immeasurable greatness 

of His power to us who believe, 

according to the working of His vast strength.”

-Ephesians 1:17-19

See Him.

Make your decisions with Him. 

Know His words and the truth about what He says.

Ask Him what the tensions are really about, and know the truth. 

He has called us into hope! 

Do you decide because you have hope? 

Do you believe that He is for you? 

I do. 

This is not about guilt. 

This is about your decisions leading to life. 

I have decided to live, and that means I choose to be in Christ.  My identity is in Him.  

Everything else is a reminder of that.  

No other person has the words of life, 

and I praise Him in my mistakes and in my accolades.  I am always rejoicing in Him, always. 

This joy is something I cannot deny. 

I make my decisions with tension to reveal where I need to be reminded that I am in Him. 

Jmegrey