Home Life Issues Your Spiritual Coach Making Decisions

Making Decisions

The more complicated and complex our lives and world become, the harder it seems to be to make decisions. The demands that are placed upon us, along with the expectation to multi-task actually make it difficult for us to come to a place of clarity. You may find yourself having to hold several thoughts in your mind at once making it feel like your mind is as mixed up as a boiling stew. It may seem impossible to bring your mind to a place of stillness long enough to see things clearly and deeply. You may find that you question the decisions that you make or that you are unable to make decisions at all.

Two things may be of help. First, try to sort out for yourself which decisions are really important. For example, struggling about what to have for breakfast or what pair of pants to buy may not matter all that much, so don’t spend a lot of unnecessary energy on these. Other decisions, however—like who to marry, what career path to follow, where to live, what to give your heart and passion to—are decisions that require time, silence, solitude, and prayer. Give these kinds of decisions your best effort—your most keen attention. You may still make a faulty decision, but the Holy One can still bring grace out of an imperfect decision! If you do the best you can, God will take care of what you can’t. So relax!

The second thing that is critical to make clear and good decisions is claiming the time and space for silence, solitude, and prayer so that clarity can come. If you make this a habit in your daily life, it will be natural to bring yourself into that holy space when you need to make an important decision. You will find it much easier to let go of all the competing worldly demands in order to focus on the decision at hand. Taking a few minutes a day by yourself in complete silence (even when you have no decision to make) will help you become comfortable and familiar with stillness.

Over time, this will become a place of peace for you—a place where things that are unclear can become clear. God is always ready to meet you in that place—because it is a place that holds your soul. Look for God there, and when you do have an important decision to make, lay it before God in that silent place and wait for clarity to come to your mind and soul.

Tip to try: 
Take 10 minutes of silence each day for a week and at the end of the week, note in a journal how the exercise helped or hindered you.

Scripture for reflection:
“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10a

 

Copyright ©2007 Renée Miller