#15 10/1/9 Decisions…decisions
The list of considerations around the decision to relocate to continue a career or make a dramatic change in path is endless. Financial, geographical, family, and health status come to mind quickly but don’t encompass all the touchy-feely things our wives and significant others want us to consider. An associate of mine nearly ended up institutionalized upon his retirement; he had for so long wrapped his identity, value and esteem in his position of status. Thankfully I have never readily admitted to anyone that I am a bank executive so I ‘ve never answered the ‘Who-I-am’ question with a ‘What-I-do” reply. Most people I meet along the way think I drive a truck and that conclusion has never been discouraged. As if the decisions themselves weren’t hard enough, my wife is a counselor by training, education and passion so she torments me with endless conversation about how I must be feeling! Yikes!
In the last few weeks I have been wrestling with a decision around relocation and change in my job-getting kicked upstairs to the holding company-or considering that I may be writing the final chapter of my thirty-year banking career. Some years ago I read Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels and based on his book I developed my own five point lecture on decision making. I have had the opportunity to teach decision making in MBA classes and our management development program at work but now I get to put it in practice.
Values: Everyone has them but not everyone has good ones. Loyalty is an old-school concept but it is still important to me. Paul wrote:
Ephesians 6:5-8 Servants, respectfully obey your earthly masters but always with an eye to obeying the real master, Christ. Don't just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ's servants doing what God wants you to do. And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you're really serving God. Good work will get you good pay from the Master, regardless of whether you are slave or free.
As an additional factor, this difficult economic crisis creates a need for my loan workout experience so I do not believe it is anywhere near the right time for me to ride off into the sunset. Conversely, the disruption to my family suggests this may be the time to go a separate way or take a different assignment. Family becomes dearer to me the older I get and the frailty of life is pounded home with each loss of a loved one and doctor visit. So these values are not in agreement therefore I cannot fully satisfy my ‘master’ and fully satisfy my family. My family trusts me enough to support my career while demanding a change in how I work my way through this, the fourth, transfer of my career but that doesn’t mean I should take that support for granted or even believe it is more than skin deep. I know their real fears for my health even though they don’t talk about it in front of me.
Can’t decide this one based on my values alone.
W W [blank]D
All of us have people we respect and admire. They may be a historic, biblical, contemporary figure or a friend or relative. We ask ourselves ‘What would ______ do?’ because we believe in their judgment, teachings or the testimony of their life. Two people stand out for me. My father and Pastor Rodger Manning both proved that careers can and should move forward in you 50’s, 60’s and even 70’s. My dad made several sacrificial moves to provide for his family and secure a safe financial future and Rodger has never accepted that God is done with him.
Surely the reason to record all the characters in the Bible was give us an encyclopedia of people to emulate and avoid. Whoever you look up to this discovery usually yields insight. For me, Dad’s death of a heart attack at fifty-five that was clearly related to on-the-job stress says I should not follow in his steps even though his intentions were pure. Rodger’s multiple careers tell me that there is another opportunity out there even if this one ends.
WW[x]D could go either way this time.
Pain.
Pain is a most effective teacher. If I have a Phd in pain you need not go to kindergarten classes.
Here again it could go either way. On one hand, the most miserable days of my life have been spent away from my family in three prior transfers. Further supporting that is the heart surgery that followed each of the last two transfers. On the other side of the ledger are the scars of being flat broke and busted as a young married man with two babies and I never want to reach in my pocket and come up with nothing but lint ever again. Nancy
Psalm 37:25 (King James Version) 25 I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
We clung to that verse and believed we would survive those dark financial days. We survived and our faith in His ability to see us through financial distress is strong. Just as true were the painful years of financial sacrifice to erase the debt that resulted from one bad decision. This one is clearer to me as physical and emotional misery for a short time is a fair price for the financial security at stake.
Is it Instinct or is it the Holy Spirit?
Funny how we become wiser if we just survive for very long. What may appear to be sage insight could be nothing more than refusing to make the same mistake again. The older I get the bigger my catalog of dumb ideas has grown and avoiding them is my primary inspiration. More important is the gift of seeing with God’s eyes because his spirit speaks to yours:
I Corinthians 2:9-16 the Message Bible
No one's ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it— What God has arranged for those who love him.
But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.
But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.
10-13The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. Who ever knows what you're thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he's thinking, but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. We don't have to rely on the world's guesses and opinions. We didn't learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we're passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.
14-16The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can't receive the gifts of God's Spirit. There's no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God's Spirit is doing, and can't be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah's question, "Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?" has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit.
Here is the arena where good decisions are made. Right thinking guided by a Righteous God pierces through feelings and emotions to discover what is really going on all around us. Here is where you realize He knew you’d be at this cross road long before you arrived and his plan for you life doesn’t end when you make one bad choice. My trust in him is anchored in this fact and I can take these kinds of steps into uncertainty relying on Him. This one tips toward the relocation as well because I can see his hand on my life so easy in the rear view mirror even though it’s foggy out the windshield.
Finally, What doors are open?
If I just had a dollar for every time somebody agonizes over whether they should be a rock star or a math teacher but they can’t hold a tune in bucket and they can do long division in their head, I’d be rich. Let’s see should I bang my head on door number one while door number three is standing wide open.
Proverbs 3: 5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. [a]
His prophecies in Isaiah to make a highway before his people and promise to open doors in Matthew 7 have clear implications in the decisions and steps we take in our careers.
Ask, Seek, Knock
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
This one points to the open doors in front of me as a clear path ahead. So with two ambiguous answers and two that seem to point to relocation, we press forward using my five-point method. But it doesn’t end there.
Two other preachers have made lasting impressions on me with solid instruction on this matter of finding out what is the right thing to do. The first one said:
1. Is it right?
a. Is it a righteous or unrighteous step?
b. This agrees with the Values step above
2. Is it Reasonable?
a. Does it make sense or not?
b. This is Instinct or WW_D
3. Is it Scriptural?
a. WW_D
b. Would who I admire in God’s book do it?
4. Is it Providential?
a. Is the door open?
b. Are there other doors?
This summer a preacher in a little church in Door county Wisconsin had even more to add.
1. Acknowledge Him first before you make a decision
a. Proverbs 3 above
b. Look to him for answers
c. Wait on him
i. Psalms 27 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.
2. Is there a Peace about the decision
and wait for the LORD.
2. Is there a Peace about the decision
a. See #14
b. John 14:26-27 (New International Version) 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
3. Validation
a. More than one confirmation occurs
b. Words both spoken and written
c. The testimonies of lives.
d. The Doors that open and close
e. God was validating for me by this preacher’s word
4. Instruction
a. Paul in Acts 9 learns his new job at Ananias’ house
b. Ananias learned first before Paul [Saul]
c. God fills in the gaps after we obey-doncha just hate that.
Well this thing has gotten pretty long this time but I wanted to leave you with a practical tool for the next big decision that comes down your path. I hope you find it helpful… I gotta go pack some boxes.
No comments:
Post a Comment