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Decision Making and Discerning God’s Will – Episode 4
June 13, 2024 · 45 min
What do you base your decisions on, and how do you discern God’s will for your life? Sometimes, we make decisions based on fear, guilt, shame … or what feels right, what has worked in the past, or what others want. In this episode, Haley and Dustin discuss these pitfalls and provide helpful insights from God’s Word on handling regret and unintended consequences of our choices and how to make decisions that honor the Lord.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more :
(00:04) - Navigating Decision-Making Through God's Will
(13:14) - Navigating Life's Decision-Making Process
(25:22) - Navigating Decisions With Wisdom
(31:28) - Making Decisions With Purpose and Hope
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Helpful links and resources
Connect with us on social!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Sign up for our in-person and livestream event on Saturday, June 22, on Mental Health and the Church https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/mental-health-and-the-church
Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/
Learn more about Hope Talks and submit your question for Haley and Dustin: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/podcast
Free resource! Download our free PDF on Decision Making and learn practical steps to discern God’s will -- https://www.hopefortheheart.org/decision-making/
Video course on Decision Making – https://www.hopefortheheart.org/product/decision-making-video-course/
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Bible verses mentioned in this episode
Proverbs 11:14 – “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”
Philippians 2:4 – “Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.”
2 Corinthians 5:10 – “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
Series Hope Talks June 13, 2024 · 45 min · Hope Talks
What do you base your decisions on, and how do you discern God’s will for your life? Sometimes, we make decisions based on fear, guilt, shame … or what feels right, what has worked in the past, or what others want. In this episode, Haley and Dustin discuss these pitfalls and provide helpful insights from God’s Word on handling regret and unintended consequences of our choices and how to make decisions that honor the Lord. Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit. So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything. Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart. Listen in to learn more : (00:04) - Navigating Decision-Making Through God's Will (13:14) - Navigating Life's Decision-Making Process (25:22) - Navigating Decisions With Wisdom (31:28) - Making Decisions With Purpose and Hope -------------- Helpful links and resources Connect with us on social! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart Sign up for our in-person and livestream event on Saturday, June 22, on Mental Health and the Church https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/mental-health-and-the-church Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/ Learn more about Hope Talks and submit your question for Haley and Dustin: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/podcast Free resource! Download our free PDF on Decision Making and learn practical steps to discern God’s will -- https://www.hopefortheheart.org/decision-making/ Video course on Decision Making – https://www.hopefortheheart.org/product/decision-making-video-course/ -------------- Bible verses mentioned in this episode Proverbs 11:14 – “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” Philippians 2:4 – “Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.” 2 Corinthians 5:10 – “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” ...more Show the full description Show less What do you base your decisions on, and how do you discern God’s will for your life? Sometimes, we make decisions based on fear, guilt, shame … or what feels right, what has worked in the past, or what others want. In this episode, Haley and Dustin discuss these pitfalls and provide helpful insights from God’s Word on handling regret and unintended consequences of our choices and how to make decisions that honor the Lord.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more :
(00:04) - Navigating Decision-Making Through God's Will
(13:14) - Navigating Life's Decision-Making Process
(25:22) - Navigating Decisions With Wisdom
(31:28) - Making Decisions With Purpose and Hope
--------------
Helpful links and resources
Connect with us on social!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Sign up for our in-person and livestream event on Saturday, June 22, on Mental Health and the Church https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/mental-health-and-the-church
Learn more about the ministry and resources of Hope for the Heart: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/
Learn more about Hope Talks and submit your question for Haley and Dustin: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/podcast
Free resource! Download our free PDF on Decision Making and learn practical steps to discern God’s will -- https://www.hopefortheheart.org/decision-making/
Video course on Decision Making – https://www.hopefortheheart.org/product/decision-making-video-course/
--------------
Bible verses mentioned in this episode
Proverbs 11:14 – “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”
Philippians 2:4 – “Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.”
2 Corinthians 5:10 – “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
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0:00 God cares about our decisions. Our decisions matter. We do have a choice in our matters of life, and we can change things. We don't have to just live, you know, on autopilot and do what we've0:11 always done.0:12 Right.0:13 And that, you know, if we've made the wrong decision or we've made a decision and there's unintended consequences Mhmm. That there's still hope, there's still grace, that it's not, you know, a 1 and0:24 done once and for all. We can still still go to God and say, okay, what do we do now?0:33 Welcome to Hope Talks, where we want to give you every reason for hope for every challenge in life. I'm your host, Haley Scully, along with Dustin Anderson. And today,0:45 Dustin, we are discussing decision making, discerning the will of God. Just a little light topic. Yeah. Discerning the will of God.0:55 Yep. I think it's a good topic to discuss today. So I've been thinking about, you know, we're on episode 4 now.1:02 Mhmm.1:02 We've talked kind of just the why we're starting this podcast. We've had June on, and last week, we discussed the topic of hope a bit more and normalizing hope. Mhmm. And I think1:14 about the, you know, at Hope for the Heart, have resources on 100 topics. Mhmm. And we could kind of go in any direction. You know, we could go kind of heavier topics like depression or anxiety1:26 or, you know, things like that. But I feel like we kinda wanted to start with something a bit more foundational. Yeah. Something that kind of affects every area life.
1:39 And so I think decision making, we have a video course on that, we have resources on that, I think is a good place now that we've kind of, you know, talked through hope a little bit and kind
1:50 of
1:51 Why we're here and what we're doing.
1:52 Why we're here and what we're doing. I think decision making is a thing that kind of affects our daily lives. It affects just the trajectory of our lives in many ways as we make big decisions of
2:03 what we want to do with our lives, who we want to do it with, all those kinds of things. And so
2:09 What we call that, Dustin, is getting down to the get down.
2:12 Getting down to the get down.
2:13 Yeah. We are getting down to get Well, because like you said, we've kind of done some introduction of things, and we have all these topics and all these resources. I love the
2:25 topic of decision making. Like, I'm a little bit of a decision making I'm gonna
2:29 Aficionado.
2:30 Aficionado. That's a prettier word than I was thinking of. But we don't want to just address all 100 topics.
2:39 Yeah.
2:39 What we wanna do is help experience understand kind of this system of hope. Yeah. You know, how do we seek God's word where we are with whatever we're dealing
2:51 with and apply that? And so I think in Hope for the Heart, 1 of the things we wanna help people understand and why we started with this topic is decision making is not
3:02 a super scary or emotional topic. Yeah. You know? So if we started with something that's a little bit harder to deal with, it's just a little harder to process because it might be wounds that we're talking about. But
3:13 decision making, everybody can say, How do I know what God wants me to do? How do I know what God's will is in this So as we talk about this, we're gonna talk about kind of,
3:25 yeah, how do we apply God's Word? How do we take our decisions to God? Is God in our decisions? Does He have door A and door B for us? If we choose
3:37 wrong, we, you know, you lose the game or whatever. So in understanding, in choosing this topic, we can start to provide an understanding of
3:49 how people can apply these resources, how these resources can help us find hope from, like we said in the very first episode, everything from the difficult issues to the joyful issues, the easy things to the very
4:00 difficult things. So decision making, I think we talked a little bit before about how we kinda set people up to doubt God's goodness when we set them up to
4:11 hope in a certain answer, and then He doesn't do that answer. So then we're frustrated with God. So a lot of that comes back to how do we decide what direction to
4:23 go? How do we decide who to get married to? How do we decide what our career is gonna be? So that's 1 of the reasons why we wanna discuss decision making, and we're starting with that as we jump into this
4:35 library of resources that we And
4:37 I think it's important to say just right out the gate that God cares about our decisions. I think, you know, our decisions matter. We do have a choice in our matters of life, and we can change things.
4:49 We don't have to just live, you know, on autopilot and do what we've always done.
4:54 Right.
4:55 And that, you know, if we've made the wrong decision or we've made a decision and there's unintended consequences, that there's still hope, there's still grace, that it's not, you know, a 1 and
5:07 done once and for all. We can still, you know, still go to God and say, okay. What do we do now?
5:14 Yeah. That grace word. I know that's 1 of your buzzwords, and I love it too. So when I was younger, I think 1 of the ways that I made decisions is
5:26 I'm like an INFJ, if people follow along with Yeah.
5:29 Myers Briggs.
5:30 Super justice. Like, it and I always tried to do the right thing. Yeah. You know? I wanted to make the right decisions and be strong and be smart.
5:42 And a lot of times growing up, I was able to do that. Was able to say, This is right, that's wrong, on my own sense of justice, on my own sense of understanding of how things were. But then, as I got a little
5:54 older, I did get to some of those decision points where maybe my flesh was a little weaker. And I made decisions not based on what was right or according to God's Word, but I'll say it got me
6:05 along pretty far. You know, kind of my own sense of righteousness leaning over into self righteousness. I could kind of make the right decision a lot of times.
6:17 But when I failed, I failed big. When I hit those moments of making a decision not according to what would be a godly decision, but according
6:29 to my flesh or my circumstances or my fear, whatever was driving my motivation in making the decision, that's when it was like, Oh, wait. No matter how good, smart, wise, whatever I
6:41 try to be, I'm never gonna be good enough to make all the right decisions, to do all the right things. So how do I know, God, what do you want from me here? And how do I kind of
6:53 submit and surrender? So what's a time in your life, I'm juking a little bit here, We don't really but what's a time in your life that you had to make a big decision and kind of how did
7:05 you make that decision, and then how do you now looking back on it think this might have how could you have adjusted that? Or what were some of the consequences of that?
7:14 That's a good question.
7:17 Thank you.
7:18 Yeah. Mhmm. Well, I think 2 things come to mind. And 1 of them, what you'd mentioned kind of a pitfall there in decision making. Sometimes I feel like God opens doors
7:29 very clearly. I think about when I was making the decision to go to seminary. Mhmm. And what came before that really was my pastor who discipled me for, you know, 3 years every Monday,
7:41 you know, sitting down answering my questions, and he eventually asked me if I'd ever consider going into ministry. And I just, like, rejected that, you know, and ran away from that idea, but it took a lot of, like,
7:54 confirming and wrestling through that, and then ultimately kind of, you know, working through God's word and and what he has for me, and then just kind of making a decision of, okay, I'll say yes to this,
8:06 I still don't know what it means. Yeah. But then once I kind of said yes to that, I feel like God kinda opened doors and made it pretty clear of where I was
8:18 supposed to go and when, and you know, I was living in Wisconsin, I had mentioned this before, but just things happened where, you know, we lost someone in the family and we came down to
8:30 Texas, and I learned about DTS, and we had family down here, and it was just very clear that this was the time and the place to make that decision.
8:41 Because you did you feel it in your belly? Did you feel it in your heart? Like, you know, I get that. I know that this is kind of
8:48 Yeah. There was the kinda what I think about with decision making is there's the kind of the the external and the internal confirmation. So externally, was just like things were lining up. Just like we had a place to
8:59 stay. We we had adequate finances at the time. Like, know
9:05 Green flags, or green lights.
9:06 Green lights, as Matthew McConaughey was saying.
9:08 Green lights, yeah.
9:09 But then there was just the, I think God had to grow just my internal sense of calling, and you know, and what I had planned for my life, because I was on like the path to like being a
9:21 high school education, you know, English teacher.
9:25 So No 1 would ever ask me to teach English. Keep going.
9:28 So, you know, I had to navigate that for a while, but then I think about also, you know, what do we base our decisions on and how do we make our daily decisions? And 1 of the things I was thinking through this morning
9:40 was just like, I've realized over the last few years, I make a lot of my decisions based on, not so much like people pleasing, but like, I'm very aware of
9:52 how my decisions will affect others. So if there's like a decision I'm making where it's gonna affect the kids in a certain way or
9:59 Mhmm.
10:00 There's like tension in in the group or whatever, that will influence it to that's an important factor or a big factor. But then it's also a thing where, like it's good to be
10:12 mindful of how your decisions affect others Mhmm. But sometimes I take it so far that it's like, I either can't make the decision because I just want everyone to be at peace with it.
10:21 Right.
10:22 Or I'll put, and this is where I'm struggling, we talk through this, Philippians 2 says, put the needs, you know, of others above yourselves. And I think generally that's
10:34 that's the course of the Christian life is being unselfish. But I think I can overextend that so much where I forget about my own needs. Mhmm. And I don't remember to make decisions that are,
10:46 you know, like, I'd say healthy for me. Yeah. Or, you know, am I making decisions that are good for other people, but like I'm just neglecting myself. Yeah. You
10:58 know, and I'm not giving myself enough rest or enough, you So
11:02 your heart motivation is to make decisions for those that you care for. Yeah. And I'm thinking of the 4 1 woman and 3 little ladies at your home. You know, I'm sure you're
11:14 thinking of your family as you're thinking of that. So your heart motivation is for those that you care for. But sometimes we feel like it's a contradiction then to take care of ourselves if that's your heart motivation.
11:26 But I think part of the wisdom and the growth in Christ in that is Christ isn't just trying to use you to just care for them. If you're completely deflated and depleted, you're not gonna
11:38 have the strength that you need for your motivation. So in order to care for them, you do have to care for yourself. I think a lot of times in our culture right now, we talk about the pendulum
11:50 swing a little bit to where all of a sudden we realized we felt deflated. We're caring for others, we're making decisions based on everybody else, and then we think, wait a second. I need to
12:02 take care of myself. And then we swing so far that we can be tempted to become self centered to where, okay, I'm not gonna do that because I need a me day.
12:13 And we need those things. I mean, I'm not trying to make that flippant. But the reason that we need those is because we want to care for others. So I think 1 of the things that we wanna help people
12:25 do is just stop for a moment. And just like you did, you realize you make a lot of your decisions based on caring for others. I kinda realized I made a lot of decisions based on my own sense of
12:37 righteousness, like what's right and what's wrong, and sometimes I can be a little bit too dogmatic. And I've had to practice the grace of the gray, not gray in what God's Word
12:49 specifically says, but gray in understanding that I don't have all the answers and the solutions, you know, and realizing that's what I've based my decisions on. So we peel that
13:01 back and think, Okay, if those have kind of led our cart to get off track a little bit, then how do we pull back into making
13:13 God
13:13 godly and God honoring decisions? You know? So what's 1 way that you do that to kind of, okay, balance taking care of yourself and doing things for others?
13:26 Yeah. I think this is what this topic has made me think through because I wanna take each topic and, like, each week like, I'm starting a new routine now of, like, what does God actually want me to do with this topic and
13:37 not just what am I gonna say on this episode or whatever? I actually want
13:41 Yeah. How do I live it?
13:42 Yeah. How do I actually live this through? And and so I've been thinking through and maybe it's because it's, you know, getting to be summertime, but I'm thinking through, like, what does my
13:54 rest time actually look like? Like, what time each day and each week do I have for, like, you know, rest? Because there's there's work, there's kids, there's dropping off and picking
14:06 up, and there's all this stuff. But Mhmm. And so what does that look like? And then, like, am I okay with it? Can I allow that? Can I just be okay that I'm human and that,
14:18 you know, that it's okay to take a break and things like So just 1 of the real practical things that I started months ago and I'm not super consistent with, but just exercising a little bit in the morning, just
14:30 giving myself, you know
14:31 1 pickle, 2 pickle? Yep. An old commercial. That was like, that's how you burn 2 calories. You might be doing a little bit more than that, but that's what came to mind.
14:40 But it's a thing about just, and this is where I think decision making gets real practical is what do you want your time to be like? What do you want your schedule to look like? Like, what are you allowing into your
14:51 life? What do you need to say no to? What are things that you're avoiding that you need to confront? You know, like, what is that pile of clutter in your house that you need to
15:02 address? What are you know, is there a relationship issue? Is there a conversation you need to have with someone you love that you need to do? Like, these are decisions we have to make, you know, every day.
15:14 And so, yeah, this is kinda where the rubber meets the road. And so
15:18 There's a song that's coming to mind
15:20 Of course.
15:21 Written by an ancient, wise sage. And it goes like this, stop, collaborate, and listen.
15:29 Okay.
15:30 That's how it starts. But that's what we wanna do. We wanna stop for a second. Yeah. We wanna collaborate with the word of God. I did just turn Vanilla Ice into
15:42 ungodly We wanna collaborate with God and then listen to that leading and realize we are not just helpless and hopeless.
15:53 We
15:54 can stop for a second, think about what are driving my decisions.
16:00 Yeah.
16:00 What do I need to hold onto? It's not a matter of just cutting off relationships immediately, just going to God's Word, beginning to think about. And that's 1 of the things that we wanna help people practically
16:12 know how to do. For me, seminary was a big decision in both of our lives. So for a lot of people, it might look a little different. For me, at 31, deciding to go to seminary, and it was the
16:24 same. There were incredible things that God did around me and in my quiet time. Like, there was just no denial that this is the path. This is the way walking it. I knew that's
16:36 what God was leading me to do. And I had very well meaning people try to care for me and talk me out of it. You don't have to do this as long as
16:48 you honor God. You know, do what you wanna do, but as long as you give God the glory. Well, that made me super mad because I was like, If I'm getting ready to blow my life up and go to
16:59 seminary and sell my house and, you know, you're saying it doesn't matter either way. Yeah, it doesn't matter either way. But here's 1 of the big pieces for me. I spent really nearly
17:11 15 years, I would say, of my life of God being very clear about here's the next step. As I sought Him, as I, you know, going into international ministry,
17:23 I had prayed against that. I was scared to fly. Had specifically asked God never to send me anywhere. So a lot of the things in my life that people would look at and say, Oh gosh, you know, God had a plan. I was like,
17:35 Are you kidding me? This is not what I want. I'm scared to death of this. But I spent about 15 years of God really showing me the next step and me saying, you know,
17:48 okay, we'll do, and him just being so gracious and having a plan. And then I got to a point where I felt like he said, choose. Yeah. Because I
18:00 kept begging for that next step. I really got used to it. I really got used to do what you don't wanna do and then experiencing his goodness and then saying, I want more of that. And so then I got
18:12 to a decision point where I didn't feel like he was making it very clear, and it was almost like you can go either way. And that's when I got to say, I choose the unknown
18:23 with You, Lord, as opposed to what feels the most comfortable. Because I've tasted radical goodness from You, and so let's keep going in that direction.
18:36 And that, you know, I think a lot of people think that if we choose wrong, you know, Oh, I married the wrong person a bunch of years ago and now I'm in a bad marriage. Or, you know, I got pregnant out of
18:48 wedlock and now, my kids are struggling. We have all these things and we think that we're living in this constant consequence of God being mad at us. And it's not a consequence of God
18:59 being mad at us because some decision that we made, we have consequences to the decisions that we made. That's not necessarily what God did. That's what we did in the
19:11 state of our world. But that temptation is then to separate ourselves from God because we don't like how He handled the situation. But what we wanna do is draw near to God. We wanna draw near to
19:23 God and say, Okay, these are the consequences of my sin, but you know what? I know that you're good and allow Him to comfort and grow us in that. So we can make a ton of wrong
19:35 decisions, and in the morning, go to the Lord and Him begin to direct us in His It's just a matter of sometimes we don't know where to start or how to do that. And that's 1 of the pieces that we wanna
19:47 plug in for people.
19:48 Yeah. There's a lot there that I want to respond to. But 1 of the questions I did wanna ask in your story and maybe point to is when you had to kind of reach that decision
20:00 point and make that choice, was that something that you did? You know, did you have people in your life that were helping you navigate that decision?
20:08 I did. I always wanna know, you know, what's their right answer or whatever. And that choice, I went to family. And, you know, like I said, I'm almost
20:20 50, and I still go to my parents. I mean, I still my mom and dad are that covering point in my life. Now, at this age, I don't take every little thing to them, but
20:31 big life moments, I'm gonna do that in community. I'm not gonna just, you know, go rogue and all of a sudden do So I go to my parents and then I went to my pastor, 1 of
20:43 my pastors at my church in Oklahoma City, and I asked him. There was a potential opportunity that I was talking about with them and then another opportunity I was kind of weighing both sides. I was
20:55 like, Did God tell you to have me do this? Confirmation. Yeah. If God's not gonna give me confirmation, I wanted Him to give somebody else confirmation and them confirm it. Like, was
21:07 still He had been so clear for so long that I needed him to answer me the same way. That pastor was so patient, and he was like, If you're asking me if I had a dream that you're supposed to do this and God came down and
21:19 told me, he said, No. So I think sometimes we make it too big of a mystery. We know We can know right from wrong. And when we
21:30 accept Jesus as our savior, when we say, I am in, that's 1 of the things that I think helping people understand that. That salvation is the
21:42 incredible peace. That gives us an eternal peace, but it's the discipleship. When Jesus said, I came to give you life more abundant, abundant and free, like, that's
21:54 real. And that requires some participation of us. But so many people, we don't necessarily know how to then take these things to God. We just kind of like white knuckle and close our
22:06 eyes, and I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. Yeah. No, I've done that, and God's done crazy things with But it is not that wishy washy. You know, if
22:18 he's not giving a specific directive in your spirit, as we pray with 1 another, as we ask people to speak into our lives, then we can do the thing that we feel is right
22:29 and trust the spirit within us. Another thing, the lease on my apartment was up recently, and I went and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna move into this other apartment, da da da da. And I
22:41 felt like it was the right thing to do. Was something that I had been wanting to do. The timing was a little bit off and a little bit difficult, but I was like, I need to not be lazy. You know, I'm not a punk. I can do
22:52 this. I can pack up. I'll have 2 weeks and I can do you know, and I tried to muster it all. And so I signed the lease, and then I went back to my apartment. I sat there for an hour, and I was like,
23:03 Oh my gosh, what did
23:04 I just do? And I ran back down there and I was like, Please turn that up. I don't wanna move. The Spirit, trust that even if I make a wrong decision or a wrong move, He can help right that
23:16 for me. And if I had just been like, Nope, this is it. I'm gonna keep doing what I said I'm gonna do, and overrode that gut spirit in me, then I would probably be dealing with the
23:28 consequences of, you know, just pushing So I think it's just knowing His voice, we have to, like any relationship, we have to practice
23:40 trusting it. So when you're getting to know somebody, when you're growing in your walk with God, it's like, I'm gonna share 1 more example.
23:48 Okay.
23:49 Okay? This is super silly. But it's how I started practicing doing what I felt like God was telling me to do. Making a decision based on what I felt like He was saying. I
24:01 was kind of newly turning back to Him, late 20s. I was at a grocery store, and there was a person on 1 of those motorized carts, you know, and they were trying to reach for
24:12 something, and I felt in my spirit like, Ask them if they need help. Now, that's not super uncommon. Know? A lot of people have compassion, but I didn't do it. And I was too
24:24 embarrassed to say anything, so I went and I checked out and I went to my car, and I just, it was overwhelming. Go in and ask that person if they need any help. So I went back in the
24:36 store, and I found that person in an aisle. And I went over to them, and I said, Sir, can I help you reach that? He looked at me and he said, No? He said,
24:48 No? And so I ran back into my car and I started balling because I was so But I knew that the result of it didn't matter. It was my obedience that
24:59 mattered. So I made the decision beyond what felt right in my flesh, and that was like a snowball. Every time, I just started thinking, I'm not gonna think this is coincidence.
25:12 I'm just gonna start And he started really guiding my decisions from there.
25:17 I'll share a store story.
25:20 Okay. Grocery store lot.
25:21 Was just like a month ago. And then I want to talk through, I'm gonna say concentric circles. That doesn't mean anything right now, but it will in a minute.
25:29 Okay. We'll circle back to that. See what I did. Thanks.
25:32 Good. Barrett, that's a
25:33 good Thank you.
25:34 I wish I had said that. No. 1 of the things that helps me make it's just this kind of biblical truth. There's a lot of verses on this, but Mhmm. The idea that we're gonna be giving an
25:46 account, and that sounds heavy and serious, but it works itself out in, I think, the practical decisions of life. So I was at a store with my youngest a month or 2 ago, and it
25:58 was like the self checkout thing. And so I thought I had I sincerely thought I had checked out every item, but there was like a little thing of like spice,
26:09 like you were stealing it.
26:11 And so and they checked my receipt and everything, and they let me go. And as I was unloading in my car, I realized I didn't pay for this. And it was just kind of like, I can just
26:20 Dun dun dun.
26:22 I can just get away with it.
26:23 Right.
26:24 You know, it's like 2 dollars. It's not gonna make a difference. But, like, I'm literally sitting there in the moment. I'm like, I don't wanna take my kid all the way back in, go through self like, I could have justified
26:34 it. But then I was like, or but what came to mind was like, do I wanna give an account for this? Do I wanna have a conversation with Jesus about how I stole,
26:47 you know, this? And I'm like, no, I don't wanna do that. So I'm just gonna do the right thing right now. And I, you know, I actually it was a thing where you could just, like, scan it on your phone and pay for it.
26:57 Oh, okay.
26:58 I did that. So but it was a practical thing of, I think about that truth a lot of how we're we're going to be giving an account for,
27:06 you know,
27:07 for what we do. And I think that's 1 way of when we're making a decision, you know, and so this is where the concentric circles come in. So I think of like
27:19 3 circles of like, and this is where it helps, you know, making decisions of like the inner circle is just kind of like, what does God's word say? Is there a very clear command?
27:29 Right.
27:30 Is there, you know, and that's
27:31 Is there a thou shalt?
27:32 Yeah. Is there a clear kind of moral command, like, should I cheat on this test? Should I lie about it?
27:39 Right.
27:39 Should I, you know, that's kind of like choosing right is obedience, choosing wrong is disobedience.
27:45 Like
27:45 there's those types of decisions. But then there's kind of the broader second circle where it's just kind of wisdom. It's kind of, you know, what job should I take? You know, who should I
27:57 marry? Those kinds of things where the Bible's not gonna tell you the name and address of the person.
28:04 Unfortunately. But
28:06 there's still Scripture still speaks to it, you know, of the kind of character people should have, you know, are they a Christian, that kind of thing, and you know, is the job, does it useShow more
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