Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Is there anything more mundane than making a decision? We all make decisions every single day. From the moment we begin our day, we are inundated with decisions that have to be made. Some seemingly small and insignificant, others life-changing. But every decision we make, no matter how small, carries with it a weight of consequence. If we choose to hit the snooze button, we may be playing catch-up all day long. If we decide to stop by Starbucks on the way to work, we may need to pack a lunch to save a few dollars. These choices add up, so much so that scientists have coined a term called “decision-making fatigue” that essentially means the more decisions you make, the less likely you are to make good decisions in the future.

Every decision we make matters.

REFLECT: Think about how many decisions you make throughout the day. 

In scripture, as in life, we see everyone making decisions, some good and some horribly bad. One such example of a good decision was Ruth. Ruth was faced with a difficult decision. After the death of her husband, Ruth had to decide whether she would stay in her homeland and remarry or leave everything she had ever known and travel with her late husband’s mother to their homeland. Now, there are multiple reasons why Ruth ultimately decided to leave her land to go with Naomi, but the main reason was that she saw that Naomi’s God was the one true God. She chose to follow God and released the outcome into His hands.

READ: Ruth 1:1-18 NLT
In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. And when they reached Moab, they settled there.

Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.

Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah.

But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes. And may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.” Then she kissed them good-bye, and they all broke down and wept.

“No,” they said. “We want to go with you to your people.”

But Naomi replied, “Why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands? No, my daughters, return to your parents’ homes, for I am too old to marry again. And even if it were possible, and I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what? Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else? No, of course not, my daughters! Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord himself has raised his fist against me.”

And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. “Look,” Naomi said to her, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.

This is such a great reminder for us. What Ruth realized is something we can all learn from. Her choice seemed like a difficult one. In the face of loss and challenge, she simplified her decision down to following God and allowing Him to lead.

I believe there is a simple way to make decisions. Simple, not easy. Making decisions in our life can be very taxing. It can hold a weight on us that, at times, can feel unbearable, but we can simplify it by approaching the choices we have to make by leaning into the Holy Spirit and asking Him, “What do you want me to do?” Pastor Aaron says often, “If we let him, the Holy Spirit will do the heavy lifting.” Will you let him do the heavy lifting in decisions of your life?

ACTIVATION: The best way to be ready when the big decisions of life come is to practice on the smaller ones. Invite the Holy Spirit into every decision you make today no matter how simple.

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