dream turned dilemma

gintama is back :')

i remember back in high school, whenever youth group wanted to hang out, loitering around waiting for someone to make an executive decision for what we were to do or where we were to go was a prevalent characteristic of our time spent together. i remember it eventually caught on as a running joke that christine lin was not a good planner for hangouts, because she was too indecisive and while i joined in on the fun of teasing her about that quality, i knew that realistically, we all struggled to make decisions- big or small. from which college to attend to which place to eat after fellowship, our decisions were made to be weightier than they actually should have been as if our lives would go terribly wrong if we chose one thing over another. 

sometimes i catch myself getting frustrated when others are indecisive- perhaps because i'm impatient for an answer, but looking deeper, it is more likely that i simply don't want to make a decision myself. to make a choice, to say i am going with this instead of that, is in a way taking responsibility for the consequences of that choice. in my relationship with God, i often get frustrated too when He places me in situations where i have to decide what to do and the answer is not definitively prescribed by the bible. there is no audible "yes, john go to this place" or "no, that is not My will" that i can depend on for certain things that seem really important. the problem is this: i get frustrated, because in trying to "trust God", i am actually not trusting God.

let me explain. i have heard from many other Christians that deal with this issue to pray and wait. it is an exercise of trust to wait for an answer, but only if an answer is promised. if God said to me, "wait until october 3rd, (yes mean girls reference) 2015 at 10:47 a.m. and I will tell you who your spouse will be", i would be exercising trust by waiting until that day without looking for a potential spouse on my own. if that were the case, it would actually be disobedient of me to assess my relationship with any woman in my life with the intention of seeing how possible marriage would be, because that would mean not trusting that God would give me the answer by trying to find it myself. hopefully, by now we realize that God would never give us such an answer. and since an answer is not promised, it can be concluded that the appropriate exercise of trust is to actively make a decision and leave the results in God's hands.

in no way am i advocating rash decisions, however. and i'm not saying that we should cut prayer and waiting out of the process of decision making. instead, i would say as an extension, pray for wisdom and not for an answer. as for the time between being prompted to make a decision and actually making the decision- the waiting period if you will- make an effort to think realistically about the pros and cons, about what you genuinely want and need to do, and how you might glorify God through your eventual decision.

in some sense, we have been given a promise regarding our decisions. paul tells us in romans that God works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. good not meaning earthly comfort, but meaning our sanctification and His glorification. and we have every reason to trust in that promise.