"I will visit you after..."
"Perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter..."
"I do not want to see you now just in passing..."
"I hope to spend some time with you..."
"If the Lord permits..." - from 1 Corinthians 16:5-7
I have never been great at decision-making. At least, I have never felt great at it. Looking back on the last couple of decades of my sojourn, I can see a track record of critical choices that yielded good fruit. So I do not mean I constantly make bad decisions. I do make them (the bad ones), but what I mean here is that I am one of those people who struggle and deliberate and vacillate while making decisions, and, because of all this, I feel I have never been great at decision-making.
I do think I have gotten better at it. I have hacked away at the process and have sought the wisdom of my elders -- not just to get their wisdom about my decisions, but their wisdom about how to make decisions. Christ's scripture and Christ's followers and Christ's Spirit have all conspired to make me better at discerning Christ’s will. But still, I feel I have never been great at decision-making.
And I know a decisive person is not always a good decision-maker. Sometimes they are consistently decisive in an unwise direction. It is just that I wish I could be more decisive while also making wise decisions. I am happy to report that I have grown over time, but I am a work in progress. At least I am Christ's work in progress, and his willingness to use my life amazes me.
I think it is for the above reasons that I find such comfort in passages like 1 Corinthians 16. It provides a peek into the Apostle Paul's decision-making process. There are other passages like this one (for example, Romans 15:22-29, Acts 16:6-10). These passages comfort me because they show me Paul was a little bit like me, a mixture of self-will and submission to God's will, a man trying his best to discern the Spirit's leading for life today.
Consider it, in this passage, Paul says precisely what he planned (and did not plan) to do. He would visit the Corinthian church after visiting the Macedonian church. Then -- maybe -- he would stay with them all winter long. His reason for a full winter with them? He did not want to see them just in passing. His personal hope was to spend some time with them. But all this was contingent on the Lord's permission.
Such a mixture! I will. Perhaps I will. I do not want to. I hope to. If the Lord permits. Paul wanted God's will, but he also had his own desires and hopes, along with his own disinterests and hesitations. He was a man of God, but he was not always certain of precisely what God would permit. He just knew he had to surrender it all to him.
All this talk from Paul thrills me! I love the uncertainty because it indicates humility, an open hand that tries its best, and is held out to receive from God. Whatever God wants, Paul wants, even though Paul has wants of his own. It encourages me that though I trudge along as sheep do, my Good Shepherd has his methods of leading and guiding my life. Like Paul, I have my desires and hopes, but they are often like the waves of the sea -- here one moment, gone the next. But the unchanging God has set the course for my life, and my ultimate desire is to do all He permits.
Lately, I have been thinking a bit about decision-making in the context of community. As a thinker capable of overthinking, I have found I need others when making big (and probably not so big) decisions. And all my best decisions, the big ones that made big impacts, were all made with others. My bride has helped me. My friends have helped me. My pastors have helped me. And, often, it is appropriate for them to have helped me because my decisions have impacted them. They have skin in the game. So it encourages me that the New Testament church is often engaged in communal decision making; groups of pastors, elders, apostles, prophets, and believers joined together to prayerfully seek God's will. Together.
Perhaps you relate to all this. Maybe not. Maybe you are one of those superhero decision-makers who is a flawless combination of wisdom and boldness, discernment and execution. I need to take your class. But, for the rest of you, I hope Paul's process, or lack of one, stimulates you to get before God in prayer, hear from God in his word, and gather with other believers in counsel. I think God would rather have us dependent on him every day than following a ten-step worksheet for all decisions.
Jesus said, "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). And ever since Jesus spoke those words, his people have been trying to catch the Spirit's wind in their sails so they can be carried along into all the Lord permits. It is so much more fun than following a worksheet.
