The Discipline of Decision

''We will obey the voice of the Lord our God''  (Jer. 42:6)

   Quite possibly you are standing at a fork in life's pathway and do not know whether you should turn to the right or to the left? Perhaps the decision that must be made today, or tomorrow at the latest, seems somewhat trivial; nevertheless, you sense intuitively that great issues are involved. You may never come again to this same parting of the ways, and life will be different in the tomorrows because of the decision of today. You feel the need of wisdom that is higher than your own; of guidance by the One who sees the end from the beginning, of grace that will be sufficient for you, and of faithfulness that will not fail. Life's great issues are settled by options that may seem to be unimportant, but which in reality constitute great crises.

   The Scriptures give abundant promise of guidance to the trusting Christian. The Most High says to us, ''I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye'' (Ps. 32:8). ''The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way'' (Ps. 25:9).

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And there are numerous similar promises. In an incident related in Jeremiah 42, we trace God's provision of guidance, and we note there three outstanding factors that determine the discipline of decision.

1.  A willingness to ask guidance of God. The remnant in Jerusalem came to Jeremiah with the request that ''the Lord thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do'' (vs.3). In this we must remember, ''If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him'' (Jas. 1:5). Many have sought the Lord their God that He would lead them aright: Moses at the Red Sea, Joshua at the passage of the Jordan, Ruth in the village of Bethlehem, David in the wilderness, Nehemiah in the court of the king, Jeremiah in the prison, Peter on the housetop, and Paul on board the storm-tossed sailing craft. They all cried unto their Guide, who led them by the right way.

   Willingness to ask implies a request made in all honesty on our part and in all faith in our faithful God. We must be willing to say, ''Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God. . . . that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the Lord our God'' (Jer. 42:6). With our short sight we cannot determine what in the long run will be for our benefit or for our detriment, and we must leave the choice with Him. We need the heart attitude of the Psalmist: ''I

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will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly'' (Ps. 85:8). On our part it must be an asking ''in faith, nothing wavering. For he that weavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed'' (Jas. 1:6). Asking guidance of God implies committal, yielding, and assurance on our part that He will do as He has promised.

2.  A willingness to wait for God's guidance. The answer to the impatient inhabitants of Judah did not come to Jeremiah the moment after they had asked him to pray to God for them; nor did it come the next day. Rather, ''It came to pass after ten days, that the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah'' (42:7). Have we patience to wait God's time and way of answering our prayer for guidance? Time has a way of sifting values, of changing circumstances, of altering objectives. On occasion we find ourselves in the valley of decision, where it seems imperative to us that the choice should be made at once; nevertheless we read, ''Blessed are all they that wait for him'' (Isa. 30:18). We are further assured that ''they shall not be ashamed that wait for me'' (Isa. 49:23). For the time being we may walk in darkness as did Job who said, ''Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried

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me, I shall come forth as gold'' (Job 23:8-10). There is strength and assurance for the trusting soul that will stand unafraid on the assertion, ''He that believeth shall not make haste'' (Isa. 28:16). God will not arrive too late, nor with too little for our deepest need.

3.  A willingness to obey the will of God, as it is revealed to us. The word to the remnant in Jeremiah's day was, ''If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down'' (Jer. 42:10). To be sure, that was exactly the message they did not want to hear. Secretly they desired to flee into the land of Egypt where they would see neither pestilence nor warfare; yet they wanted God's approval of their preference.

   Are you truly willing to obey the voice of the Lord, ''whether it be good, or whether it be evil'' to your way of thinking? To insist upon your preferment is to learn with sorrow in days to come that ''the sword, which ye feared, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof ye were afraid, shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there ye shall die'' (42:16). On the other hand, to endure the chastening of the Lord, likened in this story to the captivity in Babylon, is to learn, ''I will shew mercies unto you'' (42:12). There is no substitute for wholehearted, implicit, immediate obedience to the revealed will of God. ''To obey is better than sacrifice. . . For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry'' (I Sam. 15:22,23). ''If ye be

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willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land'' (Isa. 1:19).

   Again you remember that you stand at a fork in the road. You will find that to ask wisdom of the Highest, to wait for His indication of the way, and to obey Him without hesitation is to be led in the right way, at His time, and for His glory.

With thoughtfulness and

Impatient hands

We tangle up

The plans

The Lord hath wrought

And when we cry

In pain, He saith,

''Be quiet, dear,

While I untie the knot.''

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I Want The Faith

I want the faith

That envies not

The passing of the days;

That sees all times and ways

More endless than the stars;

That looks at life,

Not as a little day

Of heat and strife,

But one eternal revel of delight

With God, the Friend, Adventurer, and Light.

What matter if one chapter nears the end?

What matter if the silver deck the brow?

Chanting I go

Past crimson flaming

From the autumn hills,

Past winter's snow,

To find that glad new chapter

Where God's spring

Shall lift its everlasting voice to sing.

This is the faith I seek;

It shall be mine,

A faith that looks beyond the peaks of time!

                        —Ralph Spaulding Cushman.*

*From SPIRITUAL HILLTOPS by Ralph. S. Cushman. Copyright 1932.

Used by permission of the publishers, Abingdon-Cokesbury Press.

Chapter Six  ||  Table of Contents