Devil's Dart: Indecision

I think it all began when I was about 12 years old. My parents took us to Dairy Queen for a treat. Back in that day, there was a Dairy Queen commercial where a chocolate mountain was topped with ice cream and surrounded by bananas, pineapples, and strawberries. At the end, it showed this beautiful masterpiece of a DQ Banana Split. It looked divine! Usually, I am the one that can’t decide on what to order, but that day I was thinking of that image on the TV and quickly ordered. As I stood there anticipating delicious delight, a dish was placed in front of me that looked awful. The ice cream was half melted, the banana was mushy and my dream of a blissful desert was shattered.  

It was a total letdown. Reality fell far short of my expectations.  

While that is a very simplistic and silly experience that had no real consequential impact on my life, it does completely capture my relationship with decision-making. I get paralyzed in the analysis phase. I don’t want to make a wrong choice and be disappointed in the option. So I spin out and expend too much mental energy pouring over the possibilities, the pros and cons, the cost analysis, etc, etc, etc.  

The enemy of our hearts is satan. His goal is to lead us away from God and he is a very formidable enemy against our human hearts and minds. Deception, doubt, and jealousy are common battle tactics for him and he uses our own character and histories against us. He is not all-knowable like God and therefore can’t know the thoughts of my heart. But he can see our actions and reactions to life. Therefore through careful study of us, he is able to twist the words and circumstances in a manner that will lead us away from trusting in God and towards trusting in our feelings.  

For a child, most life choices are made by adults. Very little is left to a child to choose or decide upon. My younger years were characterized by lots of chaos and change. Multiple moves to new cities, divorce, remarriage, and step-siblings all created instability in my mind and heart. Chaos and change were always part of my life.

This created a foundational void in my life. I yearned for stability, order, predictability, and peace. Growing into early adult years, I began to create a vision and an expectation of what life should look like. In a way, that image became an idol in my heart. Just as I had created the expectation of a picture perfect banana split, I had created a picture perfect reality. My decisions were just that, they were mine. I needed to make sure that I chose correctly because if I didn’t, my life would not turn out correctly. It was all up to me. One wrong choice and it could all fall apart.

In Genesis, we read about God creating the world and all that is in it. He created beauty and He put man in charge of it all. Then, He created woman and gave her to the man to share life. They got to live in union with God. Their days were spent in the beautiful and bountiful Garden of Eden where everything they needed was within reach. Yet, with just a few twisted words of satan, Eve was led astray. Doubt and mistrust of God was awakened within her heart and soul and she chose to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. (Genesis 1-3) 

From that fateful moment, we have all been cursed to repeat the false belief that God is holding out on us and wants us to miss out on the best things in life. Only by choosing our own path, which is away from God’s path, will we find happiness and fulfillment. Many times, we are driven by feelings instead of by truth. We don’t know how long Adam and Eve had lived in the garden before the meeting with the serpent occurred but we do know that God walked with them every evening. We know that everything was good in creation. The animals all got along with one another. Flowers bloomed and trees produced fruit. It was a paradise where God provided all their needs and spent time with them. It seems like the perfect reality. Yet, even in perfection, Eve’s heart was led towards a false perception of how she could be in control of her life.  

There are many reasons that being decisive comes hard for me but when you peel back all the layers, at the very core, is mistrust. Just like Eve, I do not fully trust God. I too know God is the creator and sustainer of this world and my life yet somehow I am easily enticed to believe I need to control my life. I trusted Him for the really big and most important parts of life but I did not trust Him with the every day. In order for life to live up to my expectation, every single decision lay upon me. I needed to ensure that I chose correctly because I needed to control the outcome.

That is where the devil’s lies begin to multiply. First, he leads you to doubt and mistrust God’s goodness. Then he gets you to flounder in indecision believing that the next decision you make could cause all the house of cards to come tumbling down. This false sense of control leads us even further away from God as we decide to rely on our own abilities, feelings and desires. Then we have stepped into the place of God. We are our own gods and we direct our own lives. As a Christian, we know this is not where we should be and so we become flooded with shame and regret for not trusting in God. This is exactly where satan wants us to find ourselves.

Over and over in the journey from Egypt to the Promise Land, the Israelites failed to trust that God had their best interest at heart. They constantly whined, complained and made bad decisions. Even once they got into the promised land and saw the fulfillment of all that God had promised, they still wanted their own way. In 1 Samuel, we see how they rejected God’s rule and instead wanted an earthly man to rule over them as king. In 1 Samuel 12, we see Samuel the prophet chastising the people for this rejection of God. The people’s hearts are seared and they feel remorse. Then Samuel says:

“Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of his great name the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own. (1 Sam 12:20-22)

God will not walk away from us due to our sin and rebellion. He knows that our hearts yearn to choose our own paths and make our own way. Yet, because of His great name and His character, He will not reject us. This is a good reminder for me, and maybe for you, that even when I have walked away and ignored God in my decision, I can turn back to Him. His love exceeds my guilt and shame. The consequences of my choices will still fall upon me but God will be there to comfort and guide me.

Indecision and trust are intricately entwined for me. It is a constant battle for me to lay down control each and every day. There is still much I need to learn about trusting God with my everyday circumstances.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon on repeat tells about how trusting in anything in life “under the sun” is basically “chasing the wind”. When we rely on our own hearts to lead us we will inevitably choose wrongly. Our hearts can not be trusted to choose wisely. We merely trust in what our eyes can see and what our crooked heart desires. Satan loves to lead us to a place of indecision as that is a place where we are unsure and untrusting. Solomon reminds us that we will never understand or comprehend all that God does. God is in the past and knows all the scars that drive us. He is in the moment of decision desiring us to ask Him for direction. He will be in the future as we live in the results of the decision. He already knows it all.

“When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.” (Eccl 8:16-17)

There will be many more times in my life that reality will fall short of my dreams and expectations. However one decision that I will never regret is deciding to choose Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Because that is the only true decision I have ever made that has far exceeded my expectations. He provides for my eternity but He also walks with me in my daily life. Over and over again, He has proven trustworthy and faithful to His promises. When the fiery dart of satan comes and tempts me to vacillate and linger in indecision and mistrust, I can hold fast to God’s character and His Word.

“Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.”

(Psalm 107:8-9)

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! (Psalm 34:8)