Faith Has to Become a Decision

Seeing beyond the present moment is a gift. Eventually, you have to decide to live like you believe what you see.

One of the extraordinary capacities God gives us through faith is the ability to see beyond the evidence of the present moment.

You can be standing in one reality while having certainty about another.

You can see possibility where there is not yet proof. You can sense where something is going before you know exactly how you’re going to get there. You can have a conviction about what God is asking of you while still having unanswered questions about what obedience will require.

That is part of what makes faith so powerful.

But eventually, faith has to inform a decision.

Otherwise, what you see never changes how you live.

I think this is where a lot of people get stuck. We assume that if God wants us to do something, eventually He will give us enough information that the decision becomes obvious and risk disappears.

I haven’t found that to be true.

There are moments when God gives extraordinary clarity. But there are also moments when maturity looks like having enough courage to make a decision without possessing every piece of information you wish you had.

You know enough to move.

And at some point, continuing not to decide becomes a decision of its own.

Leadership Requires Decision

Decision-making is one of the most important capacities a leader can develop because leadership constantly requires movement before certainty is complete.

You will rarely have every number.

Every answer.

Every guarantee.

Every person’s approval.

Every possible consequence mapped out.

You still have to lead.

This doesn’t mean being reckless or calling impulsivity faith. Wisdom gathers information. Wisdom seeks counsel. Wisdom counts the cost. Wisdom considers options and consequences. Wisdom asks good questions.

But wisdom also knows when additional information is no longer producing greater clarity and has simply become another way of postponing courage.

There is a moment when you have to decide.

Then commit.

Then resolve.

I think of resolve as the place where the decision becomes settled inside of you. Psychologically, emotionally and spiritually, you stop renegotiating something you have already decided.

That doesn’t mean you’ll never make adjustments. Good leaders adjust strategy all the time.

But changing strategy is very different from continually reopening a decision because discomfort showed up.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that you made the wrong decision.

Sometimes you simply encountered the resistance that comes with a meaningful one.

Problems Are Not Proof You Missed God

This matters because we can have a strange relationship with problems.

We think problems mean something has gone wrong.

Sometimes they do.

But sometimes problems are simply evidence that you are alive, building, growing and attempting something that requires more from you than what you have previously carried.

If your expectation is that being called means having no problems, every obstacle will make you question the call.

What if some of the resistance is part of how your capacity is being developed?

There are strengths you cannot build without something to push against.

There is courage you cannot develop without something that requires courage.

There is endurance you cannot develop without something you have to endure.

There is discernment you cannot develop without situations that force you to distinguish.

There is leadership capacity you cannot develop while only carrying things that are easy for you.

Resistance can sculpt us if we let it.

This is why comfort is such a poor measure of whether you are on the right path.

Some of the decisions you will be proudest of making will be the ones that were deeply uncomfortable at the time.

There is something that happens inside of you when you know what is right and do it anyway.

You begin trusting yourself differently.

Not because you believe you are infallible, but because you have evidence that when something matters, you are willing to act in alignment with your convictions.

That kind of self-trust is earned.

For Things to Get Better, You Have to Be Willing to Grow

We often ask God to change circumstances that are revealing a capacity He wants to develop in us.

We want the business to grow, but perhaps our leadership needs to grow.

We want greater influence, but our emotional capacity needs to grow.

We want healthier relationships, but our boundaries need to grow.

We want a larger assignment, but our ability to make decisions, communicate clearly, handle pressure or remain anchored in God needs to grow.

There are things prayer changes around us.

And there are things walking with God changes within us.

We need both.

There is nothing more important than your spiritual development because everything else you carry is eventually affected by the condition of the person carrying it.

The weaker we become internally, the heavier everything feels externally.

But as our capacity grows, things that once overwhelmed us become things we know how to carry.

That's why growth makes us feel alive.

We were made to become more—not merely so we can accumulate more, but because as we grow, we have more to give.

You Need Philosophy and Strategy

This is another distinction I think leaders need.

You need philosophy and you need strategy.

Philosophy answers, Why does this matter? What do I believe? What am I building my life around?

Strategy asks, What am I going to do about it?

You need both.

Philosophy without strategy can leave you deeply inspired and perpetually stuck.

Strategy without philosophy can make you incredibly productive at building a life you don't actually want.

This is why good decisions require value clarification.

Before asking, What should I do? sometimes you need to ask, What actually matters to me?

What outcome am I pursuing?

Why does it matter?

What are my real options?

What will each option require?

What are the likely consequences?

What support will I need?

What risks can I reduce?

What am I willing to sacrifice—and what am I unwilling to sacrifice—to get there?

Eventually, strategy becomes much clearer when values are clear.

A lot of indecision is not an information problem.

It is a values problem.

We haven’t decided what matters enough.

Activity Is Not the Same Thing as Purpose

This is also where I think we have to distinguish growth from hustle.

They can look similar from the outside.

Both may involve hard work.

Both may require discipline.

Both may require sacrifice.

Both may involve doing things you don’t feel like doing.

But the source is different.

Hustle is often driven by fear, comparison, proving, scarcity or the belief that everything depends on you.

Purposeful growth is anchored in meaning.

You know why you are doing what you are doing.

You know what you are becoming through it.

You know who it serves.

And you know where God fits into the process.

Activity without purpose can become one of the greatest drains on our emotional well-being because you can be incredibly busy without experiencing the fulfillment of meaningful progress.

More activity does not automatically produce more life.

Meaning matters.

Contribution matters.

Growth matters.

We were not created simply to achieve things. We were created to become people who have something to give.

That is where achievement and fulfillment begin to separate.

You can accomplish something and still be empty.

You can also walk through an incredibly demanding season and experience deep fulfillment because you know your life is being poured into something meaningful.

The difference is not always the amount of work.

Sometimes the difference is purpose.

Faith Sees. Courage Decides.

There are moments when faith gives you a glimpse of something beyond your present reality.

Then comes the work of becoming capable of living there.

You make the decision.

You commit.

You resolve.

You encounter resistance.

You grow.

You ask better questions.

You get support.

You change strategies when necessary without abandoning the conviction underneath them.

You let God develop you while you build.

And you keep moving.

Not because you have every answer.

Not because nothing is difficult.

Not because you can guarantee the outcome.

But because faith was never supposed to remain an idea in your head.

Eventually it becomes obedience.

Eventually love becomes something you do.

Eventually conviction becomes a decision.

Eventually the future you say you believe in has to begin affecting the choices you make today.

Maybe that is the question worth sitting with:

If I really believed what I say I believe about where God is leading me, what decision would that require from me now?