Did we pray about it? - Decision Making

I just returned from a hospital visit with a 96-year-old congregation member going through a difficult health situation. She faces some complex decisions regarding her hospital care and the treatment plan ahead. As I sat down in the chair beside her, she recounted to me the challenges thus far and the difficulty of the decisions still ahead.

“But I didn’t even pray about it first,” she confessed through tears. And then, as if speaking directly of her father, she said, “God got onto me for that one. I didn’t even ask Him first.”

This convicted me and pointed out the main area of growth in my own capacities as a Christian leader.

For the past few weeks, the leader capacity of decision making has been my growth focus. You’ll notice on the blog a series of posts that deal with this leader capacity. When I first started these reflections, I took a survey from Multiply Group on decision making as a leader capacity and scored low on one of their questions: “Grounds all decisions in prayer and God’s Word.”

The Holy Spirit has convicted me in this season of my brash nature to make decisions without ever first consulting God. It’s the first part of the statement that gets me (i.e., “Grounds all decisions in prayer…”). Even though I trust in the anchor of God’s Word as a foundation for principled decision making, I must confess alongside my dear, 96-year-old friend that I have not always prayed before deciding.

No amount of Earthly wisdom can justify such self-reliance. My sweet friend is right to weep.