"Managing Your Decisions"

by Grace Bellingham

Taken from Dr. Frederick Drummond's message, Managing Your Decisions.

As Christians, make decisions every day, some major and some minor but decisions none-the-less. Some of them are more important than others, but these decisions are what move us forward in our lives. The most important ingredient in daily living though, that separates the successful from the unsuccessful, is how we manage our life decisions.

You may be facing an addiction, like smoking, and make the decision to stop. Or maybe you’re over weight and you’re concerned with possible health problems, or want to look better in your clothes. Whatever it may be, a decision is involved. Some of our decisions involve how we treat others or how we allow others to treat us; what kind of employee or employer we want to be…. We want to be a better mother/father, husband/wife and the list goes on. In every aspect of life decisions are involved. But how do we measure the quality of our decisions?

In Psalm 90:12 it says, “Teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” God desires for us to gain (develop) a heart of wisdom, considering the long-term effects of our actions. As the Holy Spirit continually teaches us from the Word of God, we are challenged to make decisions daily. Yet so many times we get caught up in those big decisions, “Hey, look what God taught me”, forgetting to manage that decision every day. Do you have a book of devotional decisions that you can look back to and say, “Look what God has taught me”? Are you managing those decisions? It would be more effective to take one page out of your book and concentrate on managing that decision for one year, than to rest your laurels on the pages of Scriptures and notes that have fallen aside to idle actions.

Management in that respect is more important than decision-making. What is the worth of an unmanaged decision? Life is full of decisions, but the ones that count the most are the ones we manage. Thank God for the changes that take place as a result. You may say, “How do I manage the decisions that I believe in and know God taught me?” Allow God to direct you as you manage the decisions that He is working in your life. We certainly don’t have time to deal with what God has not asked us to deal with. And of course, we must stop managing everyone else’s lives and manage our own. It’s much easier for everyone that way. Isaiah also says to wait upon the Lord, Christian, as He will renew your strength to take you to the finish line in due time. Notice waiting concludes with it “…and they will run and not grow weary.” Are you just waiting for your decision to go somewhere? Waiting includes the running that doesn’t weary us, and the walking from which we won’t faint. What a great description of how we manage the long-term marathon of our decisions before God. Wait, but RUN!

Ask yourself, “How am I managing my most important decisions?” Is one leg pinned to the ground or are you moving slowly forward? Perhaps your management style must change. As you consider this before God you will know why you didn’t manage it properly, work it out—change it. This is what managing your decisions is all about. Not perfect management—but consistent, every day taking stock. Each day you must have the attitude, “I’ll do better tomorrow”, and let it go… keep working on it—keep pressing in.

Manage your way to success one victory at a time. Tomorrow will be better than today and today was better than yesterday—that’s management. Don’t allow satan to give you his version of your progress report. He is unqualified to give a performance rating. Our enemy the devil, the accuser of the brethren, waits for the opportunity to use our sincerity against us. As Christians sensitive to the need to change and grow, we must not put ourselves under the pressure to respond to satan’s progress report. To do so is a slippery slide.

Thank God I have management skills. Thank God I’m better at it today than I was yesterday. Thank God I can continue on and improve. Make the decision today to improve your quality of living for God through spiritual management everyday with whatever time you have left. Adopt the attitude of pressing forward, managing each decision a little better every day, and don’t allow anyone to drag you back to what you have cleansed your life of before God and are now managing to success in Christ.