When we first start following Jesus, most of our decisions are based on choosing between right and wrong. How should we answer the person speaking to us? What should we do in this situation? What would Jesus do? We want to do the good thing and not do the bad thing.
This isn’t a bad way to posture our decisions. Throughout our lives, we will be choosing between right and wrong, good and bad, truth and half-truth. But as we grow in maturity, there comes a day when we’re challenged with another type of decision: Options that aren’t necessarily good or bad. Or there is no clear answer between two good things. Or we find out the truth, and we need to figure out how to live out that truth.
This is a natural part of maturing. Our lives are not clean-and-dried black vs. white or good vs. bad. There is a lot of gray. And at times, there is also confusion – we don’t know what decision to make because we don’t know what the future will hold.
In these situations, we need a grid that goes beyond right and wrong. For those of us attending churches still stressing choosing right (not a bad thing, though in my experience, most sermons don’t go much deeper than right vs. wrong), this can be a dilemma. We can even find ourselves stressing, trying to figure out what is “right.”
In these situations, I believe God is leading us into a more mature relationship with Him – a relationship that goes beyond just obedience and following the textbook. We’re invited to make a decision based on what we want our lives to look like in the future. Not so much choosing “right” as choosing how we want to live and act and the fruit we want to bear.
For example, I can be faced with the ugly truth about another person. I can talk about it in all its ugliness. And there is a time for such things – hiding the truth can end up spreading lies and inflicting pain that could have been avoided. I can choose to posture my heart against the ugliness in the person. Or I can choose to give them grace (note that I did not say “give them a free ride” or “overlook their sin and tell them it’s ok”) and honor and respect them in my heart, in my mind, and through my words. The choice here is mine – do I want to live my life with truth and rejection or with truth, honor, and mercy?
For me, most of this comes back to how I want my life to look: What I want in my mind, how I want people to treat me if I were to end up in trouble, and what I want my relationships to look like. If I want respect and joy, I’d better work toward thinking and speaking with respect and joy. If I want to be the person who always has the truth, even at the expense of others, I can posture my heart differently.
There are parts of the Christian life that are a bit like “choose your own adventure” – so do it with Jesus, and in the words of Keith Green, “Keep doing your best, and pray that it’s blessed, and Jesus takes care of the rest!”
