“Behold,
with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house,
and he has put all that he owns in my charge.”
Genesis 39:8b NASB
We spent some time yesterday talking about decision
making. Specifically, the idea of making
decisions without regrets. I shared that
there are a series of four questions that can be used as a guide to help with
this process. Of course, there is no
guarantee, but the disciplined use of these four questions will help us to make
better decisions, and hopefully live life without regret.
The first of the four questions is listed above, what story
to do I want to tell. This question is
based on the fact that whatever decision I am facing, it will one day be part
of my story. If I am deliberate with my
decision making, then I get the opportunity to decide how this story will go,
based upon the decisions I make.
I shared a quick story about my college days. I was a straight A student at Springtown High
School, won several academic awards, and finished ranked high in my class. So I went to college with some degree of
confidence that I could handle what I had signed up for. Much to my surprise, three semesters later I
received a letter that alerted me that my 1.8 GPA was not sufficient, and I was
being placed on academic probation. I
didn’t even know what that was!
As I shared yesterday, this letter left me at a
crossroad. In some ways, it doesn’t
matter how I got to the crossroad. Right? I mean, you can’t do anything about that,
it’s behind you. It’s what happens next
that is so important. It’s what happens
next that determines what my story will be.
There is a truth that I know about me, and I bet that it is
true for you as well. It is simply this;
I really do want to be able to tell my whole story, without skipping any
parts. I mean, when my kids ask me about
parts of my life, I want to be able to tell them the truth about those times,
without hiding anything, and without having to lie about anything. I want the story to be tell-able.
So if that is true, then I need to pay close attention to
these situations that pop up in my life that place me at a crossroads. For me, I basically had two options; 1) drop
out of school and go to work full-time or 2) press on and figure out a way to
get over this hurdle that was in my path.
Thankfully, I chose the latter and finished up a few years later with
great grades and a 3.2 overall.
I will say that although looking back it seems like a no-brainer
decision, I actually arrived there very much by the grace of God. I didn’t have the decision making tool set
that I have now. In fact, even the
question of this devotional was foreign to me.
I have to give all the glory to Him for guiding me through that time in
my life. As much as I believe that He
wants to do this for us in every season of life, we all know that we are not
always good at following His prompting.
So, in order to insure against the bad decisions that can be
waiting around the corner for us, we need a template to help us to work through
them as they come. The first step in the
template I am proposing is to ask the question, “What story do I want to
tell?” If applied regularly, it will go
a long way toward protecting us from bad decisions and help us to live the life
that Jesus came to give us.
Scripture to Claim:
“…I came that they may have life, and might have it abundantly.” (John 10:10b)
“…I came that they may have life, and might have it abundantly.” (John 10:10b)
Submitted By Keith Warren
