Decisions: Are You Out of Your Mind?

A message from the James 1:1-9 by Don Heatley from Vision Community Church 2/22/09

Let me tell you the story about Fred, a man who made many decisions throughout his life.  When Fred was a child, he decided to become a great baseball player.  In school, he decided to become a straight-A student.  In his twenties, he decided he was going to ask the girl of his dreams to marry him.  In his thirties, he decided to write that novel he always had in he back of his mind.  As he approached his forties, he regretted that he could not play a musical instrument, so he decided to learn to play the guitar.  As Fred moved deeper into middle age, realizing that he had no spiritual center, he decided to go back to church and get connected with God.

One might say he was a decisive man.  He had made many decisions. Yet if you looked at Fred’s life when he turned sixty, you would discover that he never played baseball.  He never excelled at school or continued to college.  He never married that girl. He never wrote that novel.  He never learned to play the guitar.  He never got connected with God. 

How did that happen?  After all, Fred had made all those decisions throughout his life.

The problem was, Fred never acted on his decisions.  Decisions are meaningless without action.  You can do the most detailed analysis of every dilemma you face.  You can weigh every pro and con, consult every expert.  You can even be absolutely sure in your own mind that you have come to the right conclusion or made the right choice.  However, if you never take the steps to act on that decision, it was all pointless.

Even if you consider all the criteria we have explored in the Decision Journey over the past month, but never act on that decision, the whole process is meaningless.  You can seek God’s will, consult God’s sources of wisdom (Scripture, reason, and other Christians), consider whether your choice will produce more fruits of the Spirit, look for signs along the way, pray and even come to a decision in our own mind.  However, if your decision remains in your mind and doesn’t make its way to your hands, your feet, your mouth or your actions in the world, your decision carries all the impact of a mere fantasy.

My hope today is to convince you to go out of your mind, at least when it comes to making decisions – move your decisions out of your thoughts and into your actions.  It is daunting to act on our decisions.  Why is that?  Why do we resist taking action, even when we are certain the action we want to take is the right one?

The first reason is fear.  We lack the confidence in our own ability to make decisions.  Granted, if you make your decisions relying solely on your own abilities, logic or frame of reference, you should be scared.  In contrast, when you make decisions utilizing the discernment processes we have explored over the past few weeks, you can have confidence.  You can have the confidence that God has been a part of your decision and God will not lead you down the wrong path.  Even if you have somehow distorted God’s wisdom through your own self-interest, and started off in the wrong direction, you also have the assurance that God will provide mid-course corrections on your journey.

Fear also relates to second reason we resist acting on our decisions.  We fear losing our options.  We hesitate to act because we still want it all.  If you are a parent, you have experienced this tendency first-hand in your children.  You bring them to ice cream parlor and ask a seemingly simple question like, “What flavor do you want?”  It is as if you asked your child to solve Fermat’s last theorem.  Ten minutes later, your child leaves with a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of chocolate.   As children we want the treat in every flavor and the ball in every color.

Unfortunately, that behavior carries over into our adulthood.  We want successful careers and perfect family life and relationships.  We want to be creative risk takers, but we still want financial security. We want to change the world, be more spiritual and serve God  - and we want all the luxuries of suburban life.  We want to be Bono and Donald Trump.  We want to be Mother Teresa and Martha Stewart. Even when we try to spin it as seeking a well-rounded or holistic life, wanting it all is nothing more than the grown-up whining of a spoiled child.

I know how difficult those choices can be. Since Vision began, I have always been bi-vocational.  (I know some you think bi-vocationals shouldn’t be in the church unless the aren’t practicing it). My time and energy was always split between Vision and my video projects.  It seemed like a good idea, but I always found myself juggling one over the other.  Three years ago, in the desire to have some security in my life, I took a steady freelancing gig.  Still I found myself torn between those two priorities and both jobs suffered.

So a year and a half ago, I left that well-paying secure perma-lance job so I could more effectively serve this church.  Even though it has been difficult and I still have to take on other work to make ends meet, I know it was the right choice.  The fruit this church has seen since I made that choice, bears witness to the fact that it was a God-based decision.  For me that decision required a lot of trust.  I had to trust that God was real and was really calling me to do this.  I had to trust this church and all of you.  If I had given into fear or the desire to have it all, my decision would still be just a notion in my head and we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Don’t let your desire to have it all prevent you from acting to have the abundant life God has in store for you. When God calls you to do something, God calls you to do something.  You can’t continue to leave all your options open.  When you try to do and be everything, you wind up being and doing nothing. 

Many of you have listened to these past few weeks with difficult decisions weighing on your heart.  You have taken the situation you face and worked through the Decision Journey.  Some of you may have missed a few Sundays.  I encourage you to go back, listen to the messages on the podcast or read them on my blog.  In either case, at some point you will come to a decision.  The path forward will become clear.

Yet taking the next step on that path seems too big, too scary.  So you remain frozen and unable to make the first move.  However breaking your decision down into small steps will take away your fear.  Jesus didn’t change the world all at once.  He began by going down to the lakeside and just chatting with some fishermen.  Deciding never to drink again is too scary, but deciding not to drink today is not.  Fixing your whole marriage at once is scary, but making a call to a marriage counselor is not.  A huge project is daunting but breaking it down into small steps , and then taking each of those steps, makes it more manageable and builds our confidence.

One of the great things about the Biblical narrative is that God never makes decisions in the abstract.  God’s decisions, or God’s will, are never just ethereal spiritual concepts that humans must somehow float up into heaven in order to grasp.  God’s decisions becomes actions in history; the Creation, the Exodus, the Exile, the Return.  God’s decisions get enacted through ordinary imperfect people like Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah or Nehemiah. Ultimately God’s decision to reconcile us and all of Creation back to God becomes a tangible concrete action in one person - Jesus.  The story of the Bible is God taking concrete action through people in history.

When you and I seek to make God-based decisions, we are really just stepping onto to the stage to play our role in that same story.  The decisions you make are your opportunity to continue that narrative of redemption and wholeness or to turn your back on it.  When you consider your decision in that light, how can you not help but have the confidence to act on it?

There is a story about a famous explorer.  He traveled the globe.  He had been to the most remote corners of the earth, experienced every dangerous circumstance, every exotic culture.  He became famous for his discoveries and death-defying tales of adventure.  When he neared the end of his life, a young boy saw him on the street and approached him.  The boy was timid and afraid to approach the explorer, but finally worked up the nerve.

“Sir,” he asked.  “I would love to live a life like yours, but I’m afraid.  I’ve imagined myself being an explorer like you but can’t bring myself to do it.  How did you ever work up the courage to go to all those exciting places?  What did you do to get over your fear of going on all those dangerous journeys.”

“That’s easy, son,” the explorer answered.  “There’s just one thing I did at the start of every adventure that was the secret to it all.”

The boy got excited, “What is it?  What is it? Tell me what’s the first thing. I need to do?”

The explorer smiled at him. “Simple kid.  The first thing I did on each and every adventure, was leave my house.”

When you make a God-based decision, it cannot just remain in your head.  You need to go out of your mind and take action.