It’s tempting to believe our decisions are either right or wrong. And the fear of making the wrong decision often leaves us stuck in indecision. But there’s greater freedom as we consider whether our decisions are good or bad.
To be sure, many decisions are right or wrong. There are things that are objectively true or false, and behaviors that hit the mark or not. For instance, it is decidedly wrong to deny that Christ is the Son of God who came to earth in the flesh. And it’s also clearly wrong to commit adultery. But perhaps most of our daily decisions do not fall into such black or white categories.
For example, do we get our wife flowers or chocolate, go out to a fancy restaurant or stay home, or initiate sex tonight or wait until this weekend? There’s not a right or wrong in these considerations. However, such decisions might be good or bad depending on how it was made and if it was grounded in love.
As we consider the heart of our wife, some decisions might communicate her love language better than others. And a good faith effort to communicate this love makes it a good decision, even if we discover later that she doesn’t care for it. The goodness of our decision is not determined by unforeseen future outcomes, but in our heart in making the decision. Likewise, it becomes a bad decision when love is not our motivating factor, even when there is nothing technically wrong with it.
We can get stuck when we fixate on our decisions being right or wrong. And often this is our way to mitigate future outcomes. While we should consider the impact of our decisions, this is best done through the filter of love. We’ve tremendous freedom when love is our guiding principle, and we no longer have to be paralyzed by indecision.
In the end, let love be your guiding light and free yourself from the burden of making every decision right or wrong.
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
