Proverbs - Wise Decision Making.

I don't like making decisions. If you're like me and you're like, I'm indecisive. I never know what to choose. Who feels that way, where you don't love making decisions? And then how many of you are more like, maybe it depends on the decision. Like some of them, it's like, I'm good. Others. Yeah.

So I'm the type of person and you guys can ask my brother, Nathan, how he feels about going through drive-thrus with me. I decide like what I'm going to order. And then by the time we get to the window to pay, I've already changed my mind. And I'm like, just kidding. Actually, I know I said a medium, but can I actually have a large? And the one that I said a large, can I have a medium? And I know I said I wanted Coke, but you know, I'm feeling Sprite now. And then I drink the Sprite and I'm like, I should have chose the Coke. Like I made the wrong decision. I'm terrible with decisions.

It's funny because for feeling that way, I have to make a lot of decisions in life. We all do. I was thinking back as I'm talking about decisions. I feel like today it would be probably helpful. Maybe you're going to be like, we never needed to know this about you. But we're going to walk through some of the moments in my life where I felt like I had to make these major, major decisions. What was that looking like for me? How do we learn how to make wise decisions when it comes to our decision making?

For all of us, we've had to make a lot of decisions in life. It can be as simple as what we eat when we wake up. If you're a breakfast person or not, maybe you choose not to eat. We all chose to come here. But you think about some of those bigger life decisions. Like when you're getting ready to graduate high school. It's like, where am I going to go to college? Or am I going to go to college? We have to decide all of those things. Then we have to decide who we're going to marry. If we're going to get married, are we going to have children? What does all of that look like for us in its constant decision after decision?

Looking back, I think one of the biggest jokes that was ever played on me, and maybe you relate to this, was thinking that deciding what I did after high school was the biggest decision of my life. Only to find out that just opened the door for all of these decisions. And just like how I am about drive-thrus, where when I'm about to get there, I change my mind. I even did that with college. Like if you know my story, all my graduation cards say, have fun in LA. I was going to go to LA, warm, sunny Los Angeles for school. And instead I went to Minnesota for school. Like the frozen tundra is where I decided to go. Instead, last minute changed my mind. And that's a whole other story for another time. It was definitely like the Lord's hand in it, guiding me through awesome prophetic words and all of these things.

But that's just kind of been my life where I'm always like, I don't know what to decide. I've never been that person that knows that I know that I know about a decision, about the big, about the small. The more time that I've spent with the Lord of going back and processing how I make decisions with him, I've learned how different each and every one of us are and how we make decisions. Really at the end of the day, it comes to being rooted in scripture, relying on the Holy Spirit, and having the right circle of significant voices in our life to help us stay on the track of wisdom.

I didn't think of those three things before I submitted my slides, so you're going to have to take notes. When we're making decisions, always be rooted in scripture, the Holy Spirit, and having that circle of significant voices around us.

Seeking wisdom

We're going to start today by looking at some Proverbs, some scripture that we have that give us some insight of how, as followers of Jesus, we should go about making our decisions. So the first verse that we're going to talk about is Proverbs 18:15. It says:

The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.

Proverbs 18:15

The ears of the wise seek it out. What we see in this Proverbs is that it's clear that if we are going to make decisions that are wise, we have to seek it out. We have to seek it out. We have to be intentional.

One of the main points that I want us to think about today as we're walking through this is that every day we're making decisions. The decisions that we make will make us. They will direct us. They will guide us. They will influence where we go. Every decision we're making every day is forming us. If we want to make decisions wisely, then we want to seek out wise people. We want to seek out scripture. We want to seek out the Holy Spirit so that we can stay on track and have some discernment.

There's different types of things when we're seeking out God for guidance. I even want you to start to think of right now, when was the last time that you felt like you made a weighty decision? When was the last time you felt like this was a big deal for me to decide? It could look different for everyone. It could be even some of you that moved to Madison recently where you're like, this was a big decision, deciding where I was going to live. Maybe it was changing jobs. Maybe it was a relationship. But thinking, what was a big decision that you had to make?

And then think out right now. What is the decision that maybe you have to make? What is something that you've been feeling pressing or that's been on your way and on your mind of something you feel like you have to decide? Even as I teach you this today, I think that this can be a moment where we could either zone out or we could kind of lean in and even workshop as we go. Maybe by the end of this, the Holy Spirit's going to guide you to having some answers in the direction and the decision you need to make. So just want to have you think of that. When was the last time you made a big decision? And what is the decision that you have to make now?

When it comes to seeking the Holy Spirit and looking at scripture for guidance and decision making, there's a couple different things that we see. We see that there is a definitive will of God or way of God that we see throughout scripture. There's going to be some decisions that you come to where there is going to be a clear answer in scripture like yes or no of whether or not you should do this.

We look at things like the ten commandments, right? Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not lie. We all probably know if the choice is, like, lie or not lie. Probably shouldn't lie, right? If the choice is to slander and gossip, like, probably shouldn't gossip. We see those things so clear in scripture.

But then there's a lot of other things where there's not a lot of clarity on this, right? Like, nowhere does it say, like, thou shall go to this university. Thou shall work at this place. We don't have the Ten Commandments of what I should do with my life. That's not in scripture.

So then how do we figure that out? How do we discern it? This is what I would say is more the permissible will of God, the permissible way of following Jesus. We have the definitive, and that's clear in Scripture. And then we have the permissible. Those would be the things of what is your career going to be? Who are you going to choose to commit and spend your life with? Those are the things that God gives us so much choice in doing those things. We get the fun of kind of discerning it.

This is where it comes to the more time that we spend in scripture and we know God, the more time we spend in the Holy Spirit and we grow in relationship with him, the more we're going to know those answers and it's all going to start to make sense. I think of it this way. If you spend any time around me, you know that I am in the way of trying not to eat meat unless I end up in Vegas late on a Saturday night and the only place open is Popeye's chicken. Then I might have some chicken. But other than that, if you're going to order pizza, you're not going to need to come and ask me, do you want pepperoni, sausage, or cheese? You're going to order cheese because you've spent time with me and you know that I'm not going to eat the pepperoni or I'm not going to eat the sausage. I just want the cheese. So you don't have to come and ask.

The same thing happens with us with our relationship with God. It's the more time that we spend with him in scripture, in the Holy Spirit, that there's going to be certain things that we're not going to have to be like, is this a godly outfit today? Is it not? You just start to know these things and it's not like this big weighty decision. But then even those small decisions that you make are going to help you in those moments when you have to make ones that have more significance or weight.

But the other thing that I want us to hear today is when we're saying the decisions that we make make us, so we want to choose wisely. Realize that even not making decisions is making a decision. And also realize that it is never too late to turn it around and to make wise choices again.

A decision that changed everything

So when I was thinking about a moment that I would say was this change of direction, this big decision that really changed the direction of my life, it was the summer when I was 20 years old and I was in Ireland. At the time I was in a serious relationship that was headed towards marriage. I was going to be a social work major and I wasn't planning on necessarily being in full-time ministry anymore.

If I'm being honest and I look back at even my journals and notes and diaries from those moments, I don't think I really cared what God wanted for my life going into that summer. I don't think I really cared the outcome of my decisions. I think I cared that I had security. I think I cared that I had comfort. I think I cared that I had control.

I found myself where I had once wanted to be a pastor and was pursuing this, but at the time I was then pursuing social work instead, which shout out to all our social workers. That's a godly path and way of life. But I found myself in this place where I used to be so confident in hearing God's voice and all of a sudden I was so insecure. I found myself where I knew what God was speaking to me so clearly and then I was all of a sudden unsure.

I can remember even a moment where my sister-in-law Elena and I were on our dorm floor and we were filling out paperwork to go submit and like officially declare our majors as social workers. What I remember about this moment is that for my sister-in-law, it was definitely the way that Jesus was leading her. She was actually switching from pursuing ministry full-time to going into social work full-time. For me, I was doing it because I just didn't really care and I needed something and I just wanted to get it done and to just decide.

I say that to say that my story is not your story. We all have different places that the Lord is leading us. But I have always felt that in my life that God has given us the grace of choice. I knew in that moment when I am here in Ireland and I had this moment where I got to preach. After I preached, I had several people come up to me and give me these prophetic words. Like things that I knew like, okay, God is telling me that this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. It was undeniable. But yet I wasn't secure. I wasn't sure. I didn't know that I knew that I knew. But at the same time I knew. It was this weird back and forth because I've never had a moment where I'm like, one hundred percent yes. I'm always a little, I don't know God, are you sure?

I remember this moment of having to make this decision of saying God, am I going to step out in faith and walk in a direction that I can't see? Or am I going to continue to cling to what I know and the path that I want to set before me because I can see it, it makes sense, I can understand it?

I knew that if I were to stay in this relationship that I was in, that it was predictable. It was comfortable. It was somewhat in my control. It's what I knew at the time. Was it going to be good for me? Probably not. Was it healthy? Not at all. But was it something that I could understand in the moment? Yes.

I knew that if I were to pursue this career of social work and going in that route, that I could probably guarantee at least a predictable salary, unlike being a pastor where you never know what you're going to make sometimes from month to month. But I realized that when I came home that I had a decision to make. Was I going to step out in faith based on the words that God had spoke through other people and his Holy Spirit through scripture of who I knew he had called me to be? Or was I going to stay in the easy?

So I came back and I did end that relationship and I declared my major as pastoral studies instead. I still remember being unsure in that moment. I knelt down in our little prayer closet that we had on my dorm floor. I told the Lord that I was gonna go wherever he wanted me to go. I thought it was gonna be overseas. I thought it was gonna be somewhere like crazy or even back to Ireland. But instead a few weeks later I heard about Madison and the rest is history. We're here. But I still just remember those moments of decision-making and what it was like of having to rely and stay rooted in scripture, of God's plan, of telling me that he was going to honor my obedience, of telling me that the outcome was in his hands, of telling me that I didn't have to rely on myself, but I could walk in faith and trust that he was going to provide every step of the way. And that is exactly what God has done. As scary as it has been from time to time to decide to surrender everything else to him, it has always been worth it.

For all of us, our stories are going to look different of how we get to where we are. But every decision we make along the way and how we make it is forming us. As I've continued to walk and to have more decisions to make, it has been so crucial to stay rooted in scripture, to memorize scripture, and to have people around me that I can call, like when I was making those decisions, pastors in my own life to say, hey, will you pray with me? Will you help me confirm because I don't know if I can really hear God right now? So I might need to borrow your faith for a second and can you hear him with me? Because I need to know if this is where to go.

If we are going to start to grow in our decision making, then we're gonna have to go back and we're gonna have to pay close attention to how we have made decisions in the past. How you have made decisions in the past is going to look different than for me. Maybe you too have found yourself in a place where you realize that you made decisions that led you to a point of saying, this is not who I want to be, this is not who I know God created me to be. This is the invitation even today to say, what decisions can you start to make to change that? What things do you need to let go of so that you can grow into who God has created you to be?

And to know that it's never too late for that. Because when I look at who I was then, I don't even recognize that person anymore. Now I am confident in how I hear from God. But it took me continuing to step out in faith and obedience to what I thought he was saying, having it rooted in scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit and that circle of people around me that were with me for the journey.

So I want you to think about the decisions that you've made in the past. Those big decisions. Whether they led to good, healthy outcomes or they led to you being in places of saying, okay, I need to change and I need to move closer to God again. What were those things you were feeling? Who were those people that were around you in those moments?

The next thing that we're going to read is from Proverbs 13:15-16:

Good judgment wins favor, but the way of the unfaithful leads to their destruction. All who are prudent act with knowledge, but fools expose their folly.

Proverbs 13:15-16

Now this is the part of decision making that isn't always so fun to talk about. It would be easy to brush over. But the reality is that our decisions do have consequences and often can lead to destruction. That's where I found myself at that point of my life where I was in Ireland and I was in this moment of realizing that my life was being destroyed. I wasn't close to God. I didn't know him the way that I once did before. There were decisions that I had made that had gotten me to that point of being distant, of being far off, of being insecure and unsure. There are consequences. But it's never too late to turn it around.

I often think of David and Goliath and that famous story. There's this part in scripture where it says that Saul's armor was too big for David. So instead he had to go and he fought with what he knew. He had the stone, right? But I always think of that part where it says that Saul's armor was too big for David.

Because it makes me think, was that battle meant for Saul? Was that supposed to be Saul's battle, Saul's victory? But because of decisions that he made that led him far from God and him deciding not to participate in God's plan anymore, somebody else stepped up to the plate. This isn't easy for us to think of because we're like, okay, did I miss it? Did I miss it? And that even there is sometimes our backward selfish thinking because the reality is that God's plan is not about us. We can't make it and we can't mess it up. But we get to choose and we get to decide if we're going to participate.

So if that battle was for Saul and he decided to not participate in it anymore, he did not ruin God's plan. There was still defeat. There was still victory. Instead, God raised up someone else. I have had moments in my life where I can look back and I can say, I decided not to participate, but God's plan went on.

But I don't want to live like that anymore. I want to live where I am making those daily wise decisions and I am playing the role that God has asked me to play in that moment as a part of his plan and his greater story. I think even then in the life of David we see this where David made these decisions and he starts off as being someone that was just after God's heart. And then you see where he goes and you have the whole thing with Bathsheba and you have all this other stuff go down where David made some really poor decisions. But then God still gave him a chance to turn it around.

You see that it was through Nathan, the prophet, bringing correction to his life, those significant voices, that at the end of David's life, he was still known as a man after God's own heart. That shows us that even if for times we step out, we can step right back in to being who God created us to be.

Making wise decisions

When it comes to this, it shows us that we have to be faithful and waiting for wisdom. So many times we feel the pressure of things happening around us. We see other people going places, other people doing things. And we're like, well what's happening here God? Like, where are you at? Wait for the wisdom. Be faithful in the waiting.

If you've ever heard me talk about waiting, it happens in two different ways. Sometimes it's sitting still and saying, God, I'm here. I'm quiet. I'm listening. But sometimes it's waiting as we're waiting on a server, like a server waits on you at a restaurant. It's doing and it's continuing to go with what you know until God shows you what's next.

And some of us, that might be all you need to hear right now. There might be things happening or decisions that you felt pressure to make. But to just hear that, the best thing that sometimes you can do in waiting for wisdom, waiting to make the right decision, is going to be going with what you know until God shows you what's next for you.

So that means keep showing up to church, keep worshiping, keep opening your Bible every single day. Keep surrounding yourself in community that is going to point you closer to Jesus. Keep practicing things like fasting and prayer and giving of your tithes and your offerings. Go with what we see in scripture as ways to surrender our lives to God. Go with what we know. Go with those things that it's like we don't have to question if we should do this or not until God starts to show you the new things that he's doing.

So then when it comes a little more practical of how do we make these decisions, Proverbs 3:5-6 says:

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.

Proverbs 3:5-6

I love this because some versions say in all your ways submit to him. Some say in all your ways follow him. But my favorite is in all your ways acknowledge him. Acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. This scripture was foundational for me when I was in college and I was making some of those decisions. This scripture was one that I would sing to the Lord, and I would pray to the Lord, and I would write out. Because it truly was a time of me saying, God, I don't understand what you're doing. It doesn't feel good. I don't like what's happening. But I'm going to continue to acknowledge you. I'm going to continue to submit to you. In that trust that you will make my path straight.

When I moved here to Madison, I only planned to be here for a year. Then I thought I'm going to go somewhere else and that's where I'm going to like really do ministry. And here we are six years later. But I remember that God had given me some clear pictures for who he had asked me to be and who he, I feel like, really invited me to be. I felt like when I was really young that God gave me this picture of saying that there's going to be two choices.

There's going to be the choice where you can go and you can keep scattering seed and scattering seed. When the storms come and those seasons change, you can just keep getting up and you can move on to what's next and keep scattering seed and scattering seed. Or you can be the person that plants seeds, that does the hard work of digging deep, establishing deep roots, staying through the storms, staying through the seasons. You can see the harvest and be a part of reaping that harvest too.

I think that this verse is so much of that. Sometimes it's so easy for us to be people that just want to make these quick decisions and the second something doesn't feel good, the second we don't like what's happening, we just want to move on to what's next. But the beauty in planting yourself and the beauty of watering and the beauty of doing the hard work of weeding is that you someday could reap the benefits of the fruits of the harvest.

In those times for me of even deciding to stay here in Madison, it was about six months in when I felt there was another crucial decision. I started to get different job offers and things started to happen and I said okay God, where, where are you? What do you want me to do? Every time then I looked at the city, I just couldn't look away. I knew that the Lord was giving me that invitation based on past decisions, based on words that he had spoken in the past. So again I go to pastors and people in my life and say, hey, will you pray with me? Will you fast with me? Will you help me process? Is this a wise decision to stay here in this city and to watch things grow?

Can I tell you that in some of you, you've been around for a lot of the hardships. It hasn't always been easy from season to season to keep planting and to stay rooted. But when you have things that God has spoken to you through his Holy Spirit, and when you have scripture that it's rooted in, it makes it a lot easier to stay. It makes it a lot easier to even make those decisions because you just start to know where God's at and how he's moving.

I say all this again to not make it seem like decision making is easy. And I want to give you some more practical tips here of what this looks like when I'm still faced, you know, at a crossroads. But to say right here in the scripture, we have some pretty simple steps. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Keep God at the center. Keep God at the center of your decision making always. Stay rooted in scripture, the power of his Holy Spirit. Have other people around you to help you in that. But find ways even now to put your trust in him.

If you feel like you struggle with decision making and more than just the what am I going to wear today, but in the big life decisions, and you're struggling even with the decision now, find ways that you can put your trust in the Lord. This is why even on Sundays I think one of the most beautiful things that we get to do as followers of Jesus is even surrender and trust God with our finances. When we talk about our tithes and our offerings, it's a way for us to physically show God that we are trusting you with this, and we are giving this freely. Find different practices of ways that you can trust God.

The next, it's saying so clearly, lean not on your own understanding. It may not always make sense what God is asking you to do. God decisions might not look good according to the measure of success that this world has. I think back to even a little over a year ago when we had to sign the lease to this space and we could not afford one space, let alone two. I still remember signing that lease and my hands like shaking. But it was a wise decision. It was a God decision.

Because we have people praying for months, discerning, God, where are you leading us? We brought a team of people in here to pray and discern as a community if the Holy Spirit was inviting us into this. We had moments where we knew that God was opening this door. So it was a wise decision. But it didn't make sense. God decisions don't always make sense.

The next thing that we see here so clearly is to say, in all your ways, acknowledge him. Acknowledge him. Sometimes our wise decisions can be just as simple as saying, God, where are you at in this? God, where is your presence? How is this going to glorify you? If we make decisions with that in mind, we're making wise decisions.

So here's what I want to kind of walk through. It's thinking through different maybe lies or fears that some of us have with decisions. And talk about some things that God says about that. And then some questions that I kind of ask myself, some three simple questions when I'm making a decision that has weight and has influence.

The first thing is that sometimes we have a fear of decisions or we're afraid because we believe the lie that God is far off and that he's distant, that he's hard to hear from. I want to just break that down for us because we see so clearly in scripture that God is not far off. He's not distant. He's so close. To get even closer to us, he sent Jesus down so that he could be fully human and fully divine and walk with us and talk with us. Then he left his Holy Spirit.

So this lie that the enemy wants us to get stuck in, God, I can't hear you. Where are you? You're far off. It's just a lie. He is so close. He wants to get closer. But we get to decide if we are going to continue to pursue him, to open up our Bibles and read what he's already said. To show up in settings like this and invite people to pray with us and to be with us.

The next is that if this is a God decision, a wise decision, it going to be good or easy. We just don't see that in scripture either. In Psalms 37, it says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And they are not always easy. We see that in so many different stories. You see Daniel in the lion's den. That was not easy. That did not look good on paper for him to be obedient to God. Making the wisest decision for him to make was to be in that lion's den. You see that with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego where they're literally in a fire because they're making the wise decision. The wise decision isn't always good or easy.

The sooner that we can wrap our heads around that, that not everything is going to lead to that, the better. Because what I have to constantly remind myself is that I am not living for this life. This life is short. But I'm living for eternity. So there might be short suffering here for the sake of others knowing and spending eternity with Jesus. We can endure and we are living for eternity, not this life.

The third lie is just this, that I can't make wise decisions because I'm bad at decisions. It's probably not that you're bad. It's just maybe you have to think of some new ways to make them and you can grow in your decision-making. You can learn to grow in your ability to hear God's voice through spending time in scripture and even in community with other people.

I even remember for me, the reason I share so vulnerably that I still kind of struggle with decisions is because I think I always thought that people that made big weighty decisions were so 100 percent confident that that was the best decision in the moment. So then if I didn't have that feeling, then I thought that it was wrong. But then as I got to know more people and hear how they make decisions, I realize that everybody is so different. Some people really do know. Those people are the ones that meet someone on the first date and know they're going to marry them. I know that will never be me. I'll probably be walking down the aisle going, I don't know about this. Am I sure? That's how I'm wired. The more that you hear how other people make decisions, you realize we all make them so differently. Learn how you've made decisions in the past and process that.

Three questions for wise decisions

My encouragement to you, if you're in a place where you have a decision to make or you're seeking to grow in this, is to continue to seek wisdom in community, be faithful in the waiting, and keep God at the center.

If you're taking notes, here are the three things that I want you to write down. These are the questions that I ask myself when I'm making decisions.

The first is this. Who will this benefit? Who will this benefit? Now as followers of Jesus, who do we want it to benefit? God. We want it to be for his kingdom, for his glory. But so many times we don't ask ourselves those questions before making that decision. We find ourselves making decisions that just glorify ourselves, that just are for ourselves.

I do believe in the gift of like Sabbath and enjoying life. So I'm not trying to preach this like, life is so hard, every decision should lead to like pain. Not at all. But just thinking about this, in the end, who is this going to benefit? This decision? Are we trying to create this cozy, comfortable life? Or are we trying to become like Christ?

The next is, how will this decision impact the kingdom, or influence the kingdom of heaven? This is a reminder for us that God should not just be a part of our story. We are a part of his story. We can't make it happen and we also can't mess it up. But we do get to choose on how we want to participate in his story. I want to play my part well. I want to live life wisely in that. I want to advance the kingdom of heaven.

When we're making decisions, we have to ask ourselves, how is this going to impact the kingdom? How is this going to influence the kingdom of heaven? Not just my kingdom that I'm building here on earth? That constant reminder that yes, life is short. But if we live for eternity, then time just changes because we realize that every decision we make here is setting us up for the eternity with Jesus.

The third one is, how will this decision form me? Is the decision that I'm making right here going to lead me to be more selfish or more selfless? Is it going to lead to healing or just more avoidance? Every decision that Jesus made was to the glory of God. He made the choice to go all the way to the cross, to be crucified, to pay the price for our sins. That was formational. He was showing that he was the son of God willing to lay down his life for the sake of eternity and to influence the kingdom of heaven.

In the same way, the decisions that we make form us into just a better version of ourselves or to looking more like Jesus. So the next time you make a decision, think of who does this benefit? How does this advance the kingdom? And how is this forming me?

I want you guys to stand. This scripture and this song. The lyrics of this song is talking about not leaning on our own understandings and to really just trust that Jesus knows best. I wanted to sing this and share this because this has been one of those things that in moments where I need to remind my flesh of the truth and the power in Scripture, I come back to this song and I sing this prayer to the Lord. I'm reminding my flesh and my spirit that I trust God and I'm acknowledging him. I'm trusting that as I acknowledge him, as I surrender to him, that he is going to make my path straight like he promised in his word.

I'm going to invite you to sing this, but even just to take a few moments to process for yourself right now. Think about any decisions that you have to make. Think about where God is in that decision making. How can you make a decision that's going to glorify him?

I really truly believe that all of our decision making, that's going to form us, and making wise decisions is going to start in living a life centered on acknowledging God and continuing to acknowledge him. Yes, it can feel overwhelming to say, God, are you here? Where are you? I can't hear you. I can't feel you. But at the end of the day, to know he's not far off. As we acknowledge him, he is going to make our paths straight.

So I'm just going to pray for you, and then we're just going to sing this together.

Heavenly Father, I thank you that you did not just leave us out here with no way to find wisdom or to have discernment. You did leave us scripture straight from your heart. You left with us your Holy Spirit to help us discern. We have even this community together to find those voices of significance to discern with and to pray with. I just pray right now God for anyone here that maybe does have decisions weighing on their hearts and on their minds. Would they even right now just surrender it? Would they focus on acknowledging you as we sing this song together?

God would it be our prayer that that we are not going to lean on our own understanding, on what makes sense in human flesh? But that we're going to trust that our lives are in your hands. You formed us in the palm of your hands. We are not big enough or smart enough or could ever be wise enough to mess up your plan. In the same way that we can't make it all happen, the best thing that we can do is to decide to surrender to your story, to what you're doing, even if we can't see it, even if we can't understand it.

Lord, would you help us in this moment to just surrender and to trust that at the end of the day that you are the king, that you are the one seated on high, good, faithful, constant, mighty. We are living for you, your kingdom, your glory, not our own. The decisions that we make, as long as they glorify you, they are wise decisions that are gonna guide our every step. We trust you, God. In your precious name we pray. Amen.