The flesh is sensory and emotion based. It is impulsive, short-term, feeling oriented. Making decisions based on how we feel or what seems pleasant to us at the moment, without regard to long and short term consequences, is walking according to the flesh. And according to the Bible, making decisions that way is death (Rom. 8:6).

The challenge then is to understand wisdom principles and rightly discern the consequences of our choices. We are free to make any decision we want, however, there are consequences associated with every decision and we are not free to determine them. Consequences are determined by the natural laws that govern the universe, which has been created by God. They are immovable and inevitable, whether we agree with them or not, whether we like them or not. You don’t have to agree with the concept of gravity, but if you step out of a window of a 12 story building, you will learn very quickly that your opinion matters very little. A choice is like picking up a stick, when you pick up the one end you pick up the other. Consequences follow our choices just like the one end of the stick follows the other.

To that end I’ve developed a worksheet that helps link choices with the consequences of those choices. To use the worksheet fill in the one side with the choice you are considering. Then fill in the other side with all the possible short and long term consequences of that choice. Then in the box next to each consequence put the percentage of chance that consequence will likely happen. If you end up giving high percentages to most of the consequences then it shows you are making an informed decision. If, on the other hand, the percentages are low, you may be mistaken about what will result from this choice. To further the accuracy, you can give a copy of the paper without the percentages filled in to someone you trust and have them fill in the percentages and then compare them to yours. The Bible says there is safety in a multitude of counsel (Prov. 24:6). It is often helpful to have someone who is distant from the situation, and more objective, to review our thinking.

You can find the worksheet here.

I guess it’s normal to go through these waves of recurring grief and wrestling with the problem of evil. These lyrics from Phil Keaggy’s “Chalice” have given me some light during this time:

The way to find our selves is in the fires of our sorrow
Do we look around, expect to see the wind?
Could we prevent the trials that we face with each tomorrow?
Can’t we see this is the world were living in?

When suffering restores us, burns away the empty shallowness
And softening the heart,
To be broken bread and poured out wine.
When it rains it pours, turns a life into a chalice;
There to nourish every soul one at a time.

And when I wonder if the pain could have been avoided by simply not forming such close relationships, brother Phil tells us this:

To love is to be broken, but to love nothing and no one,
We must close our own selves up, shut all the doors
And let no one in.
Locked within ourselves where it’s safe and dark and motionless
Where love will cease to be
And all the while the air is wearing thin…

Relationships are what life (and the Kingdom of God) is all about. To pursue a life of superficiality is to reject the mission of God and to resign ourselves to a life of breathing our own air.

“The [early church] fathers did not see life as a split between the sacred and the secular. For them everything is sacred. In the Greek mind-set, which I reject, prayer and a relationship to God constitute the sacred part of life separate from work, fun, marriage, or relationships, which constitute the secular part of life. This approach sets aside moments to ‘get alone with God.’ However, the ancient, biblical mind-set sees the whole day and indeed all of life-work, fun, marriage, and relationships-as the realm of the sacred. God is everywhere, at all places, in all times. There is no escaping the presence of God, for God’s Spirit is the one who gives life to all of life.”

The context of this passage is Webber explaining how to read, understand, and preach the Bible. Webber says, “God is not an absent, ethereal essence who sits in the sky and demands worship. God is the God who acts, who lives and moves and has his being in the world and among the people. Affirm that all of life, not just part of life, is sacred. Affirm that God is disclosed in every detail of human existence. Then, stand inside the Bible and God’s story and let it teach you to look out into the creation where God is signified everywhere yet particularized in Jesus, the ultimate icon of God.”

It’s amazing how pietism has even affected our approach to the Scriptures. Since thinking about these things, we’ve been trying to read the Bible differently and consciously order our worship and life around the narrative of God. A large part of this has been to incorporate liturgy into our services and orient our schedule around the Christian calendar. Rather than just reading the Bible devotionally, we now follow the lectionary, which helps us enter into the divine narrative. It also has led us to celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly.