Day 3: Be Honest With Yourself and Remember How You Are Made
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Welcome to Day 3 of Making Decisions in Uncertainty
Be Honest With Yourself and Remember How You Are Made
One of the things I can fall prey to is not being honest with myself. Sometimes I want to be seen as perfect (or at least very put together) so much that I end up presenting a false self to others and even myself. I hide what I really want, how I really feel, and what I really like. Like Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride, who doesn’t even know what kind of eggs she likes because she always eats the kind her boyfriends do, I need to be honest with my own likes and dislikes.
Oh friends, hiding is not helpful when it comes to making hard decisions, let alone living life. Let’s be honest with ourselves about how we really feel and who we really are and what we really need. Often when we stop trying to manage the opinions of others, many decisions become clear.
How God designed YOU is a big deal in making a decision. He gave you a certain set of gifts and talents that are different than anyone else. Does this decision support how you are made? Or does it push up against it? You also have a unique situation and family dynamic. If you are single this decision may look different than if you are married. You must consider your personal strengths and your areas of struggle. Your children and spouse may be involved in your decision, and therefore the gifts, circumstances, and needs of other humans have to be considered.
Over the years I have collected some questions that help me make a hard decision. I encourage you to pray and then spend some time today answering each question regarding your decision-making process. Answer honestly. It isn’t helping anyone to not be the authentic person God made you to be. The world does not need a dulled shadow of yourself; the world needs the most fully alive version of yourself you are able to give.
Six Decision-Making Questions:
What are the risks in saying no? In saying yes?
Am I making a choice out of fear? If so, what am I afraid of?
Have I given this enough time and thought? Am I pulling the trigger needlessly, too early?
Does this bring me and my family closer to our long term goals?
Am I overly focused on certain people’s opinions? Am I worried what they will think of my decision, either way?
Is God asking me to sacrifice something in this decision? Can I trust Him to provide for me if I make that sacrifice?
God, I come honestly to you. Help me to brush off the layers of fear that come from the opinions of others. Help me to live by faith. Help me to remember how You made me and that my gifts, talents, abilities, likes, and dislikes are all part of the equation in front of me.
Scripture for Reflection:
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
2 Cor 12:15-20
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
Genesis 22:1-8
22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” 15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.”