Credit: blog.ted.com

My husband and I are facing several significant decisions right now.

When I wrote down the choices we’re making in this season, I felt the weight of them. They have the power to change the trajectory of our lives, and I’m happy about it. Our lives could use some changing! 🙂

So I followed the well-worn path of seeking “God’s will”, anxious to avoid past mistakes. My dialogue with Him went something like this:

Lord, what would You have us do?

What’s the right direction for us to go?

Should I invest our resources here, or should I save them for this other venture?

In His apparent silence, a new question emerged in my heart:

What do YOU wanna do, Summer?

Wait, what? Surely this wasn’t His answer for me.

Me? Who said anything about me? I thought it was Your will or the highway!

[Crickets].

So evidently that wasn’t the best answer to give the Almighty. I reconsidered His question a second time, this time more seriously.

What would I like to do? I have no idea! I’m counting on You for this one, Lord. Need I remind You of my track record?

….. More silence.

In light of His question, I realized something: I’ve never put much stock in what I wanted before. If I’m honest, I’ll admit I’ve never really given myself permission to pursue my dreams! They always seemed irrelevant to me, trivial even, in light of our greater duty as believers. What did my dreams have to do with God’s will anyway?

I never understood the mantra “Follow Your Heart”. Follow my HEART? Does it know where it’s going? Sure, I’d “followed my heart” a time or two as a young lady (side note: disaster), but I chalked it up to rebellion, repented, & got back on the narrow road.

I didn’t know I had permission to follow my heart’s desires. I’m just realizing that I’ve equated my heart with rebellion (for good reason, too!). The prophet Jeremiah warned us of the heart’s dangers in his infamous passage:

The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?

~Jeremiah 17

He called it desperately wicked… So why would I follow such an untrustworthy thing, and why did I have this sudden urge to plumb the depths of mine?

Our divine conversation continued:

Which way do I go, Father? And why are You giving me this kind of power?

[Cue paralyzing fear].

What if I can’t do it? 

[And then the voice of reason]:

Life goes on, honey! You’ll learn even through your mistakes.

I used to handle big decisions like hot potatoes – catching them just long enough to thrust them into someone else’s hands. If I held on too long, surely they’d explode, the buzzer would sound, and I’d lose the game. They’re safer with someone else, I told myself.

I believed this someone else – be it God, parent, boss, or spouse – directed my future, & I considered myself a rebel if I didn’t heed them (which is sometimes true). So you can imagine why I was skeptical of my wishes & daydreams. My heart couldn’t be trusted, right?

Not so fast. God promised us something else about our hearts through His prophet Ezekiel, something very important to consider:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws.

~Ezekiel 36

Wow.

This explains why God seems to be handing me the reins lately with one simple word: “Choose.” After all, He replaced my stony, rebellious heart with a softened one that seeks to obey His word! He even gave me the power to accomplish this feat: His Spirit living in me.

Maybe that’s why He’s not telling me what to do lately. He trusts me enough to let me decide.

This is news to me! I’m well-acquainted with His rules but surprised by His liberties, by a Dad who gives us the ability to choose, even if we never knew it. No Control Freak puppeteer here.

But still, I wonder how God could let us choose our own paths. Doesn’t He know the immense danger of us running amok unrestrained?

Perhaps He knows something we don’t: That even in our imperfect execution, our “newborn” hearts still seek after Him and strain to hear His voice. Like me, today. Like you, many a day.

Maybe He wants us to know that following Jesus isn’t about His will superseding ours as much as it is about our two wills becoming one – one decision at a time.

Every day He gives us the powerful gift of Choice. We face daily opportunities to heed His nudges and choose His Spirit instead of our old depraved one.

And what to do if He’s not nudging us? Simply seek Him & godly counsel, weigh our options, then take a leap of faith.

So my big question is this: What will we do with our newfound freedom to choose?

For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

~Galatians 5