Decisions: Making the right one…
I’m a morning person so getting up at 5am was no big deal for me. BUT, staying up past 10pm was a hassle. I’ve been in construction most of my working career. Started off as a carpenter, then took some time off to became an HVAC technician. Started off installing residential systems… and while I could install equipment… it wasn’t my favorite part of the job. But as a self diagnosed ADHD person (well myself and friends who know how to spot it).
What I found was I was exhausted in the evening, sometimes so much so that I was falling asleep sometimes before dinner. Most evenings while my intentions were good, I found myself unable to concentrate enough to read a book, have quiet moments with God to listen and talk with Him… I’d just fall asleep in the middle of reading or praying.
Alright I see the problem here… I’ll just get up an earlier and read, pray and get on with my day. Sounds good right? Going to bed earlier wasn’t an issue. I remember ever since I was a kid, I was asking if I could go to bed around 9:30/10 O’Clock in the evening and now I was trying to stay up for whatever reason. So, around 9:30, I get up, do the daily evening checks, evening routine, and am usually in bed by 10:30 at the latest.
As a morning person, it was fairly easy to get up earlier too. The first morning it was 4:30 BOOM I killed it on the first day. I got up and thought… Alright, I’m awake, Let’s head to the gym and get a good workout in. Came home, got ready for the day, and not once thinking about the reason I went to bed earlier or got up earlier. Even though I had gone to bed early and gotten up early, I hadn’t made the decision to follow through on the plan. I decided to go to bed earlier, check and wake up earlier, check and have my quiet time with God, not checked. It wasn’t until I decided to do the devotions that I started actually doing them.
Albert Camus said - Life is a sum of all our choices. In an April 2, 1981 article of the NY Times magazine, former NSA Zbigniew Brzezinski said, When seen from the outside, decisions may seem clear, concisely formulated… but one learns that much of what happens is the product of chaotic conditions and a great deal of personal struggle and ambiguity… I’ve heard others say that wonder how they make some of the decisions they wind up making.
The problem is that many men don’t want to make a decision for fear of making the wrong decision. Fear it may ruin their life, their family, their relationships. Fill them with strife, heartache, pain… etc.
In the book, Man in the Mirror by Patrick Morley, he talks about the different between “Minor decisions and Moral Decisions”. Minor decisions would be like, of the many routs I could take to go home, what would be the best one? whether to take your wife out to dinner or play ball in your city league that night is a priority decision.
Moral decision are choices between right and wrong. There is the morally correct decision and the morally wrong decision. The decision to refund an over payment by the client is a moral decision. The decision to engage in mental adultery with a young woman at work is a moral decision. On a side note, remember Jesus said
Steve is married to his High School sweetheart Becky and they have four amazing kids and 4 equally amazing grand-kids.
Steve's prayer is to encourage men in their everyday lives, give them hope and direction to be Godly men, better husbands and better fathers.
I remember hearing the devotional every morning on the radio before school. But… If we heard Robert Cook saying, "Walk with the king today and be a blessing." we knew it was time to run, not walk out the door to catch the bus
