C. S. Lewis (“The Venerable Lewis”) wrote an essay entitled “Why I am not a Pacifist.” You can sense what the general theme was. But I want to highlight an observation that he made near the end. He pointed out that going to war threatens you with nearly every kind of misery there is, while staying at home as a pacifist threatens you with almost nothing. So he said that people who considered pacifism should realize that there are strong grounds for suspecting that their wishes had directed their decision, and search themselves very carefully.

I think there is a lesson to be learned here and applied to decision-making as practiced by Christians. This is because decision making is very hard. It can be excruciating, filled with agony and uncertainty. On the other hand, receiving nice, clear direction from God is pretty tidy and relieves us of a lot of that agony. Even if the chosen course is a painful one, we are spared the agony of decision-making itself. So the lesson is that Christians should search ourselves deeply and repeatedly. When we seek God’s guidance we need to examine ourselves to see if we are abdicating our rational faculties and the wisdom of others. When we think God has directed us we need to search ourselves to see if we are grasping at straws in the hope of avoiding making a choice. Let’s look at some specifics.

First, a joke you have probably heard. There was a terrible flood and an old widow had to crawl on her roof to survive. Two boats and then a helicopter came to rescue her but in each case she refused to go. “The Lord will help me”, she said. She drowned. When she got to heaven she asked God why He hadn’t saved her. God answered, “For Pete’s sake- I sent two boats and a chopper! What more do you want?”

This, to me, is an example of a Christian tendency to separate faith from the “real world” such that God’s acting and providence do not apply unless they are supernatural. So we may go against sage advice, and experience, and practical considerations because “we feel led.” No question, sometimes God does lead this way. But you’d better search yourself repeatedly before you decide you are supposed to follow. Making a dumb mistake “in faith” will not spare me from the consequences of making a dumb mistake. It’s presumptuous, and it’s dumb! God gave me a brain for the purpose of not being dumb, so goofing up and then blaming Him is a little cold. I think people say God is leading them to be professional athletes, rock stars and prophets more often than, say, accountants, garbage men, and grocery clerks. Odd, that.

The second specific isn’t exactly about decision making, but in a way it really is. It’s about abdicating tough decisions because you think God will make it easy for you. Here goes: I always wondered how God’s promise to give Israel the land of Canaan forever was not a lie- after all, they got exiled. They deserved it, but still, God promised, didn’t he? But I understood after Natalie graduated from college and set up shop in Seattle. Circumstances arranged themselves (in my mind this was God’s kind providence to her) so that she could make it there. A job that paid enough, an apartment she could afford, enough dough to get started. Well, I’m a worrier. What if she didn’t use her money wisely? What if she didn’t perform at work and lost her job? None of these things has happened- she’s making it. But if she hadn’t, it would have been her own doing. God in a sense promised Seattle to her., providing what was needful. But she was still quite capable of throwing it away.

This, to me, is an case of us failing to do what we should, figuring that God will pick up the slack since we’re Christian. There are lots of unpleasant things we have to do and we sometimes choose not to, using some Christian rationalization. But your irresponsibility does not obligate God to perform miracles on your behalf to compensate. If you’re thinking you can take the easy way out because of a promise God made, you’d better hesitate and search yourself again and again.

OK. Here is an example of “getting a sign” from God. I’ll pick on Ben with this one. He doesn’t like his job (delivering pizza) much. He was driving along and the car started to make a nasty sound. Worrisome. So he prayed about it. (That’s my boy!) He prayed that God would keep the car working, unless he should get another job. The noise stopped immediately. He took this as a sign that he should look for another job.

Well, as the applicable father, I have a lot of reservations with that. He definitely felt led, which is cool I guess, except for the first reservation: us contemporary types do WAY too much feeling. If we could replace it with thinking and corral feelings back into their proper role we’d do better.

OK, the second reservation is with interpretation. Maybe the noise stopping meant God is providing a car and Ben should KEEP the job. Seems more straightforward to me. Ben says that at the moment the noise stopped he was praying about SWITCHING jobs and it would be pretty raw of God to give him a sign just at that moment that meant something else. But you can see the problem of wishfully assigning the meaning you want to the supernatural event you think you experienced. Search hard for a selfish motive.

Third reservation, and I need to speak carefully here. You see, this is a form of tempting God and it’s a little hard to explain. Ben doesn’t know what God had in mind, and he is forcing God to be talking about what Ben wants Him to talk about. Suppose God was giving Ben a little lesson about how you’d better check out suspicious noises because if you don’t then two nights later the car will die in the Wal-Mart parking lot? God’s cruising along, being God, doing what He wants, when suddenly Ben is saying the next thing God does is going to signify something about Ben’s employment. Kind of forcing the ol’ Deity’s hand, doncha think? God may have a totally different agenda. God PROBABLY has a totally different agenda, because if I’ve learned anything at all I’ve learned that what’s most important to us is rarely what’s most important to Him. We can’t really blackmail Him into speaking about what we want. “OK, God, if the noise stops it means I look for work and if the noise continues, it means I don’t.” Well, maybe God really was planning to give you a revelation about that, just then, in the way you expected. But more likely, you are about to make a dumb mistake and then blame God for it. Remember, thinking God is leading you doesn’t spare you the consequences of a mistake. Search, search, search.

Suppose you have a hard, momentous decision to make, and you decide to fast until God reveals His will for you. Many people fast to help them concentrate on finding God’s will. That’s different. I’m talking about fasting until God speaks to you, kind of like a hunger strike. I’ve got a couple reservations here.

1. Don’t you have free will? Why suppose God requires one path? If you make a choice in faith, he’s likely to bless it. For example, suppose you are considering marriage. You know two wonderful, godly young ladies, and you can’t choose between them. You are faced with two good choices. Don’t you think God will bless a good choice made in faith? Why should there always be only one good choice that God is willing to bless?
2. Why aren’t you using your faculties and resources to decide? I think we turn away from standard, basic decision making mechanisms, like wisdom and thought, and replace it with all this mystical stuff about God leading. Remember the lady and the boat. Maybe God’s leading is in the form of giving you the ability to figure out what to do. In fact, you’d better assume that, unless a flaming angel hands you a memo. And even then, look carefully at the signature! Satan’s a good fake, especially if there is something you want to hear.
3. Why are you trying to force God to speak? Let God be God. He’ll speak if He chooses, but you shouldn’t pull a hunger strike on Him because you don’t want to make up your mind.
4. What kind of speaking are you expecting? Will you “just know” you’ve been spoken to? This has, in fact happened to me. I’m quite sure God spoke. But I wasn’t asking Him to at the moment, nor hoping for it or expecting it. In a number of other cases I think I DECIDED I had been spoken to because the toast landed face up or the noise stopped or the phone rang. Kind of a cop-out, in retrospect.

So there you go. I guess the basic message is twofold:

1. For Christians, decision-making is like it is for everyone else. We have access to greater wisdom and guidance in the form of His word, but we should faithfully use our faculties to decide, and trust God to either bless or interrupt.
2. The heart is desperately wicked. Search, search, search yourself. God is a great excuse for self-indulgence.