Who has the final say?

I am gradually learning that no matter what your decision making process is, the bottom line of so many decisions in our lives is priorities. You have to decide what your first priorities are in order to make decisions that will take you where you want to go, because otherwise you will never get anywhere. If you decide that your first priority is your career, then you need to make consisent decisions that put your career first. If you decide your first priority is your family, then you need to be sure to ignore anything that would interfere with letting your family come first.

Once you have established your priorities, and you make a few decisions holding true to them, your grown up life takes on a pattern. It seems to me that pattern can be wonderfully rewarding or sadly empty. Because patterns add consistency and stability to our lives, we need them. We need some sort of structure or frame through which to make decisions and process the world around us. However, when we are forming these patterns I think we need to be wildly true to ourselves. So true to ourselves that everyone says we are crazy because we continue to think of life as an unbelieveable, wondrous adventure and nothing less...we need to do things like move to Minnesota and get married (:)or move to the Middle East to live alongside Muslim women (my friend Jesse is doing this. she can't even disclose her location for safety reasons)...

This all much easier in theory because there are so many other voices that want to dictate my future. There are so many different people who wave their arms in warning to me about the decisions I think I need to make. All the while, I hear Jesus whisper to me..."Who is your loyalty to? Who has the final say in your decisions? Is it me?"

"'First things first. Your business is LIFE, not death. And LIFE is urgent; announce God's kingdom!' Then another said, 'I'm ready to follow you, Master, but first excuse me while I get things straightened out at home.' Jesus said, 'No procrastination. No backward looks. You can't put God's kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.'"Luke9:60-62 (the message)