Yes Man

This past weekend I saw a movie called "Yes Man." If you don't know the story, it is basically about a guy who commits to say "yes" to every decision he makes. This decision starts out getting him everything he's wanted in life until his close friends realize that he's just saying "yes" to decisions b/c of a commitment he made and not b/c he actually wants to. The point is made that while being agreeable and positive thinkers is usually good, if people are not maturely thinking through decisions, then they can actually do damage to themselves and others. Decisions are made based on weighing the morality and outcomes of the choices, not just b/c of a credo.

However, sometimes Christians do this very thing. We call it "the right thing to do." Why didn't you go swimming last night? Well, it wasn't the right thing to do. Why didn't you go to dinner with us yesterday? It just wasn't right.

Now understand that before I get into my main point, I'm not attacking people who have solid biblical reasoning for why they do what they do. If a person can systematically explain what they are doing and not just point to a verse out of context, then perfect. That's probably the way it should be done, eh?

I'm talking about the "I don't know, just think it's wrong"-ers. I'm saying this b/c for a long time, I was one of them. There is a danger in not knowing why something is wrong or right. Hopefully if you read that last sentence, you can readily see what the danger is. When we aren't sure, then we should probably make sure.

Paul teaches that not every sin is laid out in graphic detail in the Bible, and that for some things, the decisions are up to us to determine based on (a) what we know of Scripture and (b) the Holy Spirit's guidance--and it's that second one that I think becomes a huge problem if we simply "don't know" and "just feel it's wrong." Is the Holy Spirit's guidance vague and unclear to you? It's a big problem that's rarely ever addressed. That's basically what a person is saying when they don't know why something is wrong or right. Basically he or she is saying that the Holy Spirit isn't guiding them--or they aren't letting Him guide them. Instead, a burden of guilt is.

I think a lot of us forget that--like in Pilgrim's Progress--guilt is what brought us to Christ, but once we accepted, He took it from us. It's no longer ours. So why do we cling to it so much? B/c we feel that since God is Holy and the final Judge that He is judging every little move we make like a stern school marm. But that's not biblical. Yes, we should have the fear of God. Yes, God is Holy. Yes, He's the only True Judge. But all those facts are things that we already said we accepted. If we forget these attributes of God and constantly need reminding, then . . . there is a big problem with our spiritual life. How can we say we are growing closer to a God we keep forgetting is Holy??? And frankly, NOTHING we do is worthy of Him, which is why He paid our debt--which is the point in the first place! So . . . we are free to make right decisions and know why we make them and not chain ourselves back to guilt.

This is not to say that decisions should all be made in an instant, b/c sometimes the Holy Spirit wants us to think about things. I think we as Christians sometimes belabor decisions so long b/c we are afraid that every decision we make is a moral one, and so if we choose the wrong one we will end up ruined. I deal with this from time to time, b/c I am single. I struggle with my desire to be allowed to actually love and caress and care for one man for the rest of my life and being content with the freedom, privilege, and excitement of being single. I struggle with wondering if God actually wants me married, but I'm too hard to please. A wise friend pointed out to me once that as long as you are seeking God's Will, your decisions will be in God's Will. That's true. Take away your own selfish agenda and what else is there?

(However, I think it's important to point out that just b/c you really want something doesn't mean that God doesn't want you to have it. Your will and God's Will should actually match up. Another friend once pointed out to me that the saying "just two choices on the shelf: Pleasing God or pleasing self" is not really a good one. If your self is aligned with Christ as it should be, then when you please God, you will be pleased as well. Of course the coiners of the phrase probably meant "self" to mean "carnal self" but . . . I digress.)

There's really nothing to worry about. In fact, when we get to heaven, we probably will find out that either choice would have been in God's Will, but instead we allowed our souls to give over to the sin of worry and called it "discernment." A lot of our vices get that title, it seems.

It's important that we view our Christianity not as children in grade school afraid of what the teacher would do if she found out. We have brains; we are adults. We shouldn't make our God-given ability to make right decisions into a cop-out for something we just don't wanna do. "I just don't have peace about it." That becomes a sort of blasphemy, you realize. Do you really not have peace, or are you just being a baby? Just make a Christ-like decision. He's with you.