3 Questions to Ask Before You Make Any Big Decision

Written By Ben Hightower

Before you make a big decision, ask three questions: What has God already told me to do? What am I going to need from Him to make this happen? And what's His plan for me that I already know? Those three questions are how you actually factor God into your plans, instead of just hoping it works out.

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James 4:13-17 says:

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

I'm going to be alive, I'm going to go somewhere, I'm going to buy stuff, I'm going to sell it, and I'm going to be wildly successful in the process. That's the plan. And it sounds like a good plan, honestly, it sounds like the American dream. James isn't making up some far-off scenario either; buying and moving and selling was just how a huge part of that economy worked. There's nothing wrong with the plan itself. The problem is that you don't even know what tomorrow holds. Your life is a mist, like that cool-morning fog that rises and then the sun comes up and it's just gone. You're living and planning like that's not true.

So instead, James says, you ought to say "if the Lord wills." And on the surface, that can feel kind of petty; what does God actually care whether you say those specific words or not? But that feeling comes from misunderstanding what James is asking for. He's not asking you to tack the phrase "Lord willing" onto everything you say and call it done. What God wants isn't a new phrase in your vocabulary. It's for you to actually consider Him when you're making your decisions and your plans.

Here's why that matters more than it sounds like it should. My son and another boy from church are best friends. They're constantly making plans: they’re going to go to each other's houses, play video games, and plan videos for a YouTube channel they don't have. When he comes asking for something while he hasn't even cleaned his room like he was told, and he gets told “no”, the response isn't "okay, that's fair." It's "why won't you ever let me do anything?" When I ask if his friend got permission to invite him over (like he knows he’s supposed to), it’s never “yes” and somehow I’m the bad guy for telling him that he doesn’t get to do something fun while disobeying me. When I tell him we already have plans, he doesn’t recongize that my plans matter more, he wants me to change my plans to fit his. He never considered my plans or what he’s going to need from me to make them happen. He only thinks about his plans, and when the answer is no, suddenly it's a problem with me, not with him.

That's exactly what James is describing. We make plans that depend completely on God keeping us alive, providing for us, getting us from one place to the next, and we make those plans without ever considering our obedience, what we’ll need from Him to make the plan happen, or the plans He's already told us about. And then when it doesn't work out, we never say, “I should have checked with Him first”. We ask, "Why is God doing this to me?"

This matters because of verse 17: “whoever knows the right thing to do and doesn't do it, for him it is sin.” That's the sin of omission, it doesn't have to be on a top-ten list somewhere for it to count. If you know you should consider God in your decisions and you choose not to, it's not a small thing just because it's not "a big sin."

(The last two weeks looked at how we talk about other people and what we chase after. Today continues that same thread, the decisions and plans you make.)

What Has God Already Told You to Do?

Take something simple, like getting Netflix. That's not a sin, get it, don't get it, doesn't matter. But ask: what has God already told you to do? You know He wants you spending time with Him in the word and in prayer. Are you doing that? "I just don't have time." Okay, then when are you watching Netflix? If you're telling God no to something He's already told you to do because you don't have time, but you're telling yourself yes to something becuase you do, you're living like an enemy of God. It's not a sin to have Netflix. It is a sin to tell God no and tell yourself yes.

What Are You Going to Need From God?

Taking a vacation. Also not a sin, go enjoy it. But ask: what are you going to need from God to pull this off? Can you pay your bills? If you know you're going to spend money you need for your bills, your mortgage, your gas, on something else instead, and then turn around and ask God to bail you out, that's arrogant. It's boastful.

Same question, smaller scale: eating out. Not a sin to grab Chick-fil-A. But the average fast-food combo runs about $12, and the average person eats out four times a week, that's roughly $200 a month for one person, and multiplies fast for a family. If you're doing that while you've got no emergency fund, don’t share what you have with anyone else, and you're not giving, you're quietly depending on God to bail you out when the deer runs out in front of your car or the AC bill spikes, while you spent the money you'd need for that on something else. And when it doesn't work out, we get mad at God, instead of admitting we managed the money He gave us badly.

What Is God's Plan for You Already?

Sometimes God hasn't told you what to do. Pick the career, take the job, He's fine with it as long as you honor Him. But sometimes He has told you something, and the question is whether you're making decisions like you believe that. One of the things I ask people joining the church isn't "do you like it here", it's "do you believe Jesus called you to be part of this body?" If you say yes, and then a job or an opportunity comes along that would pull you away from that, are you considering what you already said you believed? If God moves you, that's okay, genuinely okay. But if you already know His plan and you walk away from it anyway because something better-looking came along, that's arrogance. That's the same sin.

So What Do You Do With This?

Make whatever decision you want to make. But if you're following Jesus, you don't get to blame Him when you reap the consequences of ignoring Him. And if you make plans knowing you're going to need His help down the road, but you never talk to Him about it going in, don't be surprised if it doesn't go the way you hoped. If you already know the plan He has for you, even just pieces of it, and you knowingly walk away from it, that's not a gray area. It's sin. And when it catches up with you, the right response isn't "God, why are You doing this to me?" It's "I picked this without You, and I'm sorry." Once you've made that right with Him, you can move forward.

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