The Momentary Decisions

We watched "The Encounter" as a cell yesterday and it moved me and spoke to me more than I thought it would.

One moment that really stayed with me was the part where Jesus was telling one of the characters, Melissa, that she should not accept her boyfriend's proposal because he was not the right one for her. In response, she kept protesting that they "loved each other" and every time Jesus would explain why Paul wasn't the right guy for her, she would say, "BUT I LOVE HIM!"

But Jesus began to show her all the things that would take place within the next few years and how different things were going to be and how that would affect her relationship with Paul, which was why He wanted to save her from all the pain that she would have to go through. And she kept trying to argue with Jesus and countering His reasons with her own plans ["I can save him! I can help him! I can share about You with him! I can do this!"] and Jesus just kept saying no. That she should just trust Him with Paul's life and not try to force him into something he wasn't going to be able to walk through.

And it really made me realise the danger in making decisions based on our momentary desires. Sometimes when we have to make decisions, we go by what feels "right". Everything seems to line up perfectly, and we think that this must be God's way of telling us to walk down that path, so we walk into it without really praying about it and asking God how He feels about it. We trust the "peace" that we feel, the momentary happiness that comes with the idea of that particular decision, and take those to be signs of God's approval, but He doesn't see things the same way. And if we choose to make decisions based on our "intuition", based on our emotions and our perception of the situation, we will become trapped in our own folly and never be able to see God's purposes. And we think maybe He wanted us to go through a season of pain and that He'll redeem that situation later. Of course He will. But the fact that He redeems it does not make it right. And every wrong decision results in wasted opportunities, every wrong decision means we force ourselves to take a longer route to where God wants us to be, means we make things harder for ourselves when He has set a highway before us, means that we compromise on the fullness of God for our lives.

It is the both the curse and the blessing of the PK to be able to see the fruit and impact of a lot of decisions that people make on the life of others close up. And I got to see a lot more of that in the past week in Thailand and Ipoh. Makes me realise how precious and rare it is to find people who walk in wisdom and discernment. There are so many people who so earnestly desire for God to move in their lives, or to seek God's blessings for the people around them, that they cling on to every little thing that people feed them with. But when we fail to test every spirit and every word that comes to us, it can lead to so much deception and destruction. And it pains me to see the Body of Christ walking in this manner, relying on the words of men instead of the Word of God, trying to overthrow the powers of darkness around them with their hands instead of exalting God above everything else. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. There are good decisions, and then there are the best decisions. We must rightly divide between the two and choose to bring every decision under the submission of God's leading and counsel, or live a life marked by striving and confusion and defeat.