Swimming to the Other Side

     
Several years ago, a friend of mine showed me a little trick to better guage the distance from one side of the lake to the other. If you will turn away from the body of water and then look between your legs the view you will see is a much better perspective from the view of just standing on the bank peering across the divide. In that particular situation, it really made me reconsider whether I wanted to attempt swimming across the lake, especially since we were ill equipped with no life vest or flotation device. Turns out the little trick my friend shared with me definitely gave me a different perspective before I dove in for the swim. Wouldn't it be nice to have a method to guage all of our choices and decisions before we make them?
      Certainly it would appear that if we had a similar method to determine the risk and the challenge in our decision-making process for all of life's major and even more minor decisions life would be much easier and our success to failure ratio would exponentially rise. Our health would most certainly improve, and life in general would start to feel a little less stressful if we were able to determine whether success or failure was in the making before we ever took the first step in the process. I guess if bending over and looking through your legs provided a better perspective on the success ratio, we might have a pretty funny looking society of people standing around, bending over, and looking between their legs before answering yes or no to a business decision. Fortunately, we do not have that system to lean on, but more fortunate we are that we do have a method by which we should measure out our major decisions before we dive into the deep blue unknowns in life.
      In Philippians 4:6-7 Paul reminds us of the process by which we can rest a little easier with our decisions and choices. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." What Paul is basically sharing here is that if we want peace of mind with our decisions then we should slow down, earnestly seek God's wisdom and guidance, and then make the decision as if we just looked between our legs and the distance to the other side of our lake is within a hands reach. That is comfort. Paul tells us that if we seek God in the decision- making process that we will be at peace and are able to take comfort in that knowledge. 
       "So Chuck, you're telling me that if I pray before I make a decision then it is always going to work out the way I want it to?" No, I'm not telling you that, I'm not even suggesting that you will automatically receive a guiding answer when you pray and seek God's guidance. There's always the potential that what you are asking is out of alignment with God's plan for your life in the first place, so why would you get guidance on something that isn't even in the plan book for your life? What I am suggesting is that through "prayer and petition" your questions and dilemmas will become more focused on God's will for your life and the impact that your life is to have on others. In other words, life will become less about you and more about what your life can do to help others. 
     I shared Philippians 4:6-7 with you earlier in our post, but the next couple of verses in that chapter put it all into the proper perspective. Verses 8-9 read like this, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." How fortunate, how blessed, we are to have God's promise, and not to have to depend on looking between our legs to judge the complexity of our life's decisions. At the end of the day, if what we are considering fits the criteria laid out by Paul, then we can safely presume that we are headed in the right direction. If our decisions are based in love which is the foundational cornerstone of all decision-making processes, then we can be at peace and we definitely do not have to worry about the perspective from which we are looking!
Seek His will!
Coach Carter