Sum of our Decisions

Photo by Alphacolor on Unsplash - Our community is made up by people, who make decisions, the real building blocks of community.

Anyone who has paid attention to my page recently, knows I have been reading the book “The Man in the Mirror” by Patrick Morley.  The section I just read refers to decision making, and wow it was so good I wanted to share some takeaways. 

   We all do exactly what we decide to do; we are the sum of our decisions. As hard as we try to make excuses, where we are physically, financially, morally, mentally, and relationally are functions of our decisions.  Those living under freedom-based governments largely can change our circumstances based on decisions.  I realize there are outside influences (family, culture, community) that will heavily influence some opportunities, but there are very few decisions which don’t involve options. The choice of these options compounded over our lifetime of decisions result in our current position.

   Moral or Priority Obviously every decision doesn’t have the same goal or weight to it, but it pretty cleanly comes down to choices of either morals or priorities.  Moral decisions are either right or wrong, and priority decisions are between right and right.  Most of our choices allocating money and time/ talents come down to priority questions.  The laws and teachings of the Bible are an excellent resource when it comes to moral questions.  A struggle with priority questions is that all decisions are morally right, but we are choosing between good, better, and best, with opportunity costs associated with each choice.  If we invest certain hours in our job, we can’t invest them in our family or church.  Society will often portray priority decisions as right and wrong, when in fact it is a question of good and best (politics as an example.)

Jesus’ decision template:  When tempted by Satan, Jesus used these as a risk management guide:

Math 4:4 “Man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the Mouth of God.” – We should live by the Word of God.

Math 4:7 “It is also written, you should not tempt the Lord, your God” -We should not make foolish decisions where we need a miracle to be rescued.

Math 4:10 “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” – Avoid decisions that reduce your worship and service to God.

Consequences-spiritual and financial- We are spiritual beings and as has oft been said Time=Money.  A reminder how Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and (Money).”  Once it is made, a decision leads to consequences that we must live with.  And again, we are the sum of our decisions.