because we think we know best

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."  At least, so says Saul Bellows, but there is much truth in this statement made from experience.  Whether you change it or not, the ideas that strike you in the middle of the night, the ones that wake you from a dead sleep, those are meant to be paid attention to.  Whether their purpose is to motivate you into a fury of productivity because of their inspirational content or send you into a panic as the wake of worry the words bring begin to pound, they must be paid attention to.  They are revealing something that must be confronted, something that must be completed, or something that must be turned over so that it can be taken away.  The thoughts that jumble around bringing dreams--or nightmares--are what appear when you are at your most vulnerable, when you on your own cannot shove them back down again, and many times that is their purpose, to force you to pay attention to something that in your wakeful state, your flesh would completely ignore.

This queen of waking in worry and then lying around for hours sorting through the thoughts that came has lost many an hour of sleep in the nights, but only recently did I experience of what Mr. Bellows is speaking.  At the end of the feverish typing on my phone with the numerous typos that come in a 3 am brainstorming session without wearing your glasses, all the thoughts, the words, the point, funneled their way down to the end and revealed one word, one person.  Jesus.

I know He is the Sunday School answer to all, but there's good reason, because He is the answer to all.  He just is.  But it's the getting there, it's the tracking through the muck of whys and hows, and the placing of Him in every story, that brings about the change.  He is the Light, and it is when it is understood how He fits into each and every scenario that illuminates our thoughts and changes our inner dispositions.  That moment where head knowledge becomes heart knowledge is a switch that is felt in the depths of not only your spirit, but your physical body as well.

Welcome to my 3 am thought bubble...best for me is not Best.

You see, often, on our own we make decisions based on immediate feelings.  What feels good at the time, what naturally just flows out without thinking, but truth can take awhile to float up, and first reactions are often what we want to go all in on, but are they what we need to follow?  I am not talking about womanly intuition or the heroes who immediately jump into action when they see another in need.  Instead, I am referring to the day to day life and the decisions we just make one after the other after the other from small ones such as food choices, reactions to children's moods, and responses to others while driving to larger ones like job changes, parenting, college and so on.

When the thought comes up that best for me is not Best, it means that what I think is best for me at the time is probably not Best for me over all, and might not be best for the others around me as well.  It is impossible to consider everyone in regards to every decision you make, this I know, but if we only look at ourselves our decisions will always be slanted toward selfishness.  We cannot make good choices alone, because alone we will only make choices that are good for us.  We do not live in a world of autonomy.  None of us are Tom Hanks on an island of one.  Even he turned a volleyball into a person, because he needed someone to bounce ideas off of.  We don't need a Wilson, we just need Jesus.

Here's the truth y'all, I can't handle anything on my own, and thank God I don't have to, because a long time ago Jesus gave me His Spirit as a guide and a promise that I would never be alone and that on the daily I could depend on Him for those decision making moments that they would be best for my life, and not just for my minute.  Because if it was all on me, my life would look very different right now.  Because if I was alone in this I might not be married right now, if I was alone in this I might not be as strong as I am, because if I was alone in this I would not be writing to you today, because if I was alone in this there wouldn't be a book telling other people that when your Hope is in Christ you are never alone.

When someone is plagued with a decision and we do not know how to help we tell them "do what you think is best."  I've said it to myself, my friends, and my boys countless times when I am trying to guide them to the right choice, but when I ask another to pick what's best, in a way, I'm asking them to be their own master.  What I should say instead is can you discern what is best, can you see the way God is guiding your heart?  I don't want them to feel as if they are alone, I want them to know that they never are.

There are quite a few hot button issues right now, and while I know the side of one in particular that I stand on, I know there are millions on the other side as well and it often makes me wonder why.  What are they thinking?  But not in a WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?! way like my eldest yells at my youngest when he jumps insanely over the drawn line in the sand another would barely put their toe over, but in a 'so what are they thinking, what are they wondering, how did they get to that conclusion' way.

So, there I was on a support site I never assumed I would be on reading the story of a woman full of passion sharing her story of a decision she made that left her broken-hearted because in her eyes there was no other way, no other option.  The end result, as thought out and weighed over as it was, was still based on a feeling of self, what this person felt like they could or could not handle on their own, and THAT is what broke my heart.  When you live life assuming you are the one who has to take control, figure it all out, and make sure it all works out in the end, why wouldn't that be the choice you make.

Christian, remember that.

We are a selfish, sinful lot, and if it came down to what we think is best, the choice will come from a place of selfishness or fear or ignorance.  As believers we get SO upset about the decisions that non-believers make, but when it comes down to it, they have no other choice but to make them that way because when the Holy Spirit is not guiding your heart, it fends for itself.

These are the feelings we must understand, because even with Jesus within us, we will also try to fight hard for our own desires, our own way.  Never has it been our job to convince another of what they should or should not do.  Our job is to let them see Jesus, let them know He is there, and take them, through our prayers, to the foot of the Cross.  He is the only one who can give us the best we are all desperately searching for.

Our job is not to convince another that they are wrong or that we are right.  We are not asked to let it be known that we know best or to encourage another to choose the best for themselves.  Our job is to show them Jesus, point them to Jesus, to give them the way that already knows best and is best for us.  It all funnels to Him because He is the capable one, stop trying to be a lid and stop it, instead make the hole bigger so it funnels to Him faster.

The Best is not polluted with sinful lust, selfish gain, or emotional upheaval.  The Best took all of sin on Himself.  The Best is who we are hidden in so that the Father sees what He has done and not what we have.  This Best is who those friends cut a hole in the roof to send their buddy down to.  This Best changes our inner dispositions so that we decrease and He increases and shines outward through us to others.

I pray these 3 am ponderings will bring the Light of Christ to you and those around you.  I pray that God, through them, will change thoughts, change actions, change hearts so that His beautifully created world will change and become just a little smaller through the new connections He builds.  Pray for me.