Making Decisions

           

            Making decisions is not a strength of mine.  I get stuck in a black hole of researching, dissecting, and over-analyzing. The whole process is draining when I’m trying to figure it out on my own.  A friend recently introduced me to the term “decision fatigue.”  I definitely have that.  I experienced it mildly for the first time when we were planning our wedding.  Then, between all of the moving, job changes, ministry changes, and infertility, I feel like I have had chronic decision fatigue for years now.    

We’ve been trying to make a lot of big decisions recently.  Should we try IUI (which was recommended for the second time by another OB/GYN)?  If we do, should we go to Kearney, Scottsbluff, Fort Collins, or Denver?  Which doctor do we choose?  How much do we need to save up?  Do we do a medicated cycle or a natural cycle?  Do we continue to seek out some other natural approaches first?  At the same time?  Afterwards?  It all makes my head spin, and these are only the decisions that are related to our journey to parenthood! 

            As a result, clarity and direction have been the two overarching requests of my prayers in the past several weeks.  I’ve desperately wanted quick and obvious answers for the big questions in several areas in my life.  I’m so impatient.  As I wrapped up reading Exodus this week, God impressed upon my heart one answer – but not an answer I was seeking.  The last several chapters of Exodus record God’s thorough, detailed instructions for the building of the Tabernacle and all of its contents.  In the final chapter, one idea is then repeated multiple times: Moses did everything “just as the LORD had commanded him.”  As I read that phrase again and again, the answer God gave me was that I need to focus on being obedient to Him in all the areas where He has already given me clear instruction.  Daily obedience to what He has already revealed in His Word will pave the way and prepare my heart to discern His guidance in the bigger questions when the time comes.  Why would He bother giving me more guidance unless I’m listening to and applying what He has already plainly told me?

            Ultimately, this principle of obeying what is already clear goes hand in hand with the truth that above all we should be concerned with loving God with our whole beings.  As we pursue Him, delight in Him, trust Him, obey Him, and rely on Him, our own desires will be aligned with His (Ps. 37:4) and He will make our paths straight (Prov. 3:5, 6).  If we are walking closely with Him and earnestly seeking His counsel, we can have faith that He will lead in His time.  We can be confident in the choices we make if they have been preceded by examining God’s Word, praying with faith, acknowledging God’s role, and seeking out godly counsel.  His intention is never to hide and make us guess what He wants.  He wants us to know Him and to know His heart.  He is more than willing to lead if we are willing to follow.  It starts with saying “yes” to what He has already clearly asked of us. 

Forgive and Forgive

            A couple weeks ago, I had a follow-up appointment with my nutritional/chiropractic doctor.  The last couple of visits he has done something called “Neuro Emotional Technique” with me.  It has felt a little like counseling because we’ve talked about some stressful and traumatic experiences from the past, though not extensively.  Then, he has done various adjustments to get my body “un-stuck” from fight or flight positions in relation to those different experiences.  At the end of this last appointment, I was pretty shaken up again by some of the things we talked about.  After the adjustments, the doctor encouraged me to seek to forgive (he is a believer, by the way). 

The thing is, I thought I had already forgiven.  I had told this person that I forgave them, and I meant it when I said it.  The problem is that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot completely forget.  Painful memories have a way of searing themselves into our minds.  Sure, the sting of them might lessen over time.  However, sometimes a word, a face, a place, a smell, or a song can make it all come flooding back.  Not only that, but I have to admit that I sometimes allow anger and blame to break through again.    

On the drive home from my appointment, I tried to sort all of this out in my mind.  If I still feel pain, does that mean I haven’t truly forgiven?  If I still get angry, does that mean I never really forgave this person in the first place?  Some people take decades before they are willing to extend forgiveness to those who hurt them – for something that is so hard and takes so long, shouldn’t it be a once-and-for-all type of deal?  Forgive and forget: isn’t that the saying?  How can I ever truly forgive if it requires the impossible – blotting out part of my life from my memory?

When I ask these types of questions, verses and the words of different mentors and teachers usually fill in the gaps pretty quickly.  Deep down, I knew that choosing forgiveness does not bring instant or permanent healing to the wounds that were dealt, and I knew that God doesn’t expect us to forget our pain like it never happened.  Extending forgiveness gives us the freedom we need to heal and continue to move forward without collapsing in on ourselves.

What I hadn’t fully realized before is that forgiveness can be a little like doing laundry.  It’s not something that one can necessarily do just once and be done with it forever (which would be far easier on both counts, I might add).  I’m not talking here about forgiving one person multiple times for different wrongs.  Some hurts go so deep and are so present (e.g., dealt by a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or a child), that we can’t reach the point of forgiveness for that single act just once and expect never to have to deal with it again.  1 Corinthians 13:5 explains that love keeps no record of wrongs.  Since we can’t give ourselves lobotomies to completely rid ourselves of the memories, what does this aspect of love look like? 

I can tell you what it has looked like for me:

• Refusing to nurse old wounds by dwelling on them.  This is the closest we can come to “forgetting.”  We can’t help when we run into a painful reminder, but we do have control over how we respond and whether or not we cling to that trigger.  One of my former teachers described this principle by saying that we can’t help it if a bird flies over our head, but we don’t have to let it make a nest in our hair.

• Choosing not to pull up old hurts to defend myself against new ones.  This is a huge one for marriage.  It is so easy when our spouse hurts us to pull up a list of everything he or she has done wrong in the past, if not verbally then mentally.  In that moment, we have to once again choose to forgive those past wrongs.

• Refusing to allow my anger over the sin to morph back into anger toward the individual.  This is a fine line to walk.  Again, this is much harder to avoid the longer we allow ourselves to simmer in the past. 

            Forgiveness isn’t easy.  It doesn’t come naturally, and it’s not something that we can do just once.  It is a continual, active choice not to hold a person’s sins against them.  Why would anyone in their right mind do this, especially in the victim-glorifying culture that we live in?  We forgive because we have been forgiven.

            Did you know that Jesus stands as our advocate before the Father in heaven?  Our accuser, Satan, is constantly bringing up charges against us to God the Father.  We give him plenty of incriminating evidence to use.  Even so, Jesus counters with scarred hands and feet as eternal proof that our sentence has already been served.  He knows that we still fail Him, and He has already felt the weight of all of the sin we will ever commit.  Yet, He still forgives us, and He still forgives those who have hurt us. 

            We can’t forgive and forget, but we can forgive and forgive.  Keep forgiving because He has forgiven and will never stop forgiving you.      

Is God Really on My Side?

My husband is a wild card when it comes to playing games with youth groups.  He has been known to switch back and forth to whichever team is needing a boost.  This flip-flopping is pretty obvious and appreciated in games like dodge ball, but it can be trickier in games that require stealth, such as capture the flag.  No one knows whether to tag him, run from him, or recruit him.  He is viewed with cautious suspicion until his current loyalties are made evident by his actions.  The students won’t come near him until their question is answered: is he really on our side?                 

Although we know God doesn’t shift, change, or flip-flop, our circumstances sometimes give us the illusion that He has done just that.  Then, the same question often sneaks into our hearts: is He really on my side?  Is He really with me and for me?  A posture of suspicion toward God makes believing His words and coming near to Him exponentially more difficult.  Not only that, but we find ourselves paralyzed – at a complete loss of what to do.    

The nation of Israel asked this question long ago.  As they wandered in the wilderness, they came to a place called Rephidim, according to God’s command.  One would think that a place with a name must be better than the wilderness, especially if God had specifically commanded them to go there.  However, Rephidim lacked one crucial necessity: water.  Have you ever been completely parched?  I remember feeling an urgent craving for water after spending part of a scorching summer day at the fairgrounds.  We talk a lot about being “hangry,” but I think that extreme thirst causes greater and faster changes to our disposition than hunger.  I have never experienced an equal to the frantic tunnel vision and rude desperation I felt that day.  The adults of Israel were not only feeling the effects of dehydration themselves, but they were legitimately concerned for their children and livestock.  From our perspective, they had every right to ask the question, “Is the LORD among us, or not?” (Ex. 17:7).  To them, the answer appeared to be no.  After all, their obedience to God is what landed them in this predicament.  They were so angry with Moses for taking them from Egypt just to die of thirst in the desert that they were borderline homicidal.  Their circumstances caused them to doubt God and His appointed leaders.

In their pain and fear, they completely forgot all that God had just done for them.  Were these not the same people who saw the mighty hand of the one true God as He sent plague after plague upon their Egyptian captors?  Were these not the ones whose families were spared on the night of Passover when all of Egypt grieved the death of their firstborns?  Were these not the ones who followed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night?  Were these not the freed people who walked across the Red Sea on dry ground as the waters collapsed over Pharaoh’s armies behind them?  Were these not the same people who had already cried out for water once before and partaken of God’s provision as He made the bitter waters of Marah potable and then proceeded to lead them to the oasis of Elim?  Were these not the very same individuals who had complained of hunger and then woke to God’s abundant provision of quail and manna?  Of course He was on their side!  He had proven that fact again and again in ways that we can hardly even imagine! 

We look at all that they had seen and knew of God, and we are baffled that they could even ask the question.  Are we not the same?  Blinded by our own pain, fear, and circumstantial need, we forget all that God has done for us.  I know I am sure guilty of this.  Sometimes I get so caught up in the pain of infertility and the agony of loved ones who are fighting their own battles that I forget all of the times when I could so plainly see God’s loving hand in my life.  I forget about the wonderful childhood He blessed me with.  I forget about how He let me witness one of my best friends come to know Him.  I forget about how He held me the first time my heart was broken – and each time since then.  I forget how I have seen Him quench the chaos of the enemy in the hearts and minds of young children and teens engulfed in various cultures of darkness.  I forget how He took my train-wreck of a marriage and graciously put it back on track.  I forget all of the times I have heard His quiet voice speak to my heart.  I forget how He provided one house after another where we could keep our dogs.  I forget how He’s provided jobs, finances, friends, teachers, wisdom, and all that we could ever need in exactly the right time.  I forget how He’s called me.   

I forget how He bled for me.  How He took the penalty for my sin.  How He broke the power of sin and death in my life.  How He breathed into me physical and spiritual life.  How He has blessed me with every spiritual blessing.  Given me an inheritance.  Adopted me.  Given me value and purpose.  Saved me. 

Friends, He is on my side.  He is on your side.  He is with us and for us.  May we choose to remember and believe.    

“I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Heb. 13:5b).

“If God is for us [and we know that He is], who is against us?” (Rom. 8:31b).

“I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20b).

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