4 Questions to Ask When Making a Big Decision

In a season where our little family is making some huge decisions that are going to affect the rest of our lives, I’m thankful that we had an intentional process that we walked through before making those big choices. I’m sharing my newest piece over at RELEVANT, about the four questions to ask when it’s time to make a big decision. Here’s the start of the article:

4 Questions to Ask When You're Making a Big Decision. This is so good!

This summer, my husband and I will pack up all of our things, strap our daughter in her car seat, and drive to a different state—a state where we currently have no jobs, no housing and no community. Why? For my husband to pursue a graduate degree.

Are we crazy, stupid or silly to be leaving established jobs, a strong community and a house we own for my husband to pursue a degree?

Maybe.

Or maybe we’re following God.

By faith, I believe we’re doing the latter—I believe that this step we are taking is actually a response of obedience to God. Still, from the perspective of those who don’t know us, our choice to move may seem ridiculous or even irresponsible.

But how we got here was anything but irresponsible; we took practical, intentional steps to make this decision to move. We sought God’s voice and direction in multiple ways by involving our church, our friends and our families in the decision-making process. And we believe that the steps that we have taken helped us discern God’s will and hear His voice in the process so that we can move to a new city this summer with confidence and hope.

It is in big decisions like these—decisions regarding calling, career, community, marriage—that we need clarity regarding how we can hear God and seek to determine His will for our lives. There are no hard-and-fast rules from the Bible regarding how we make decisions: We don’t always put fleeces outside, we don’t always fast for three days, we don’t always see a burning bush. Similarly, God does not always speak to us the same way—He can speak through multiple people, experiences and interactions.

When it’s time to make a big decision, here are four questions to ask as we seek to hear how God might be speaking through several of those avenues in our lives:

The 4 questions to ask when making a big decision... Share on X

1. What Does the Scripture Say?

While the Bible doesn’t tell us specifically to take one job over another or marry one person instead of another, the Word does have tenets that can—and should—guide these types of decisions. For example, the Bible cautions us to keep our minds fixed on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

Will the job that you are considering help you live a life of truth, honor and purity? Will that person you are thinking about marrying help you praise God and live a commendable life before Him? We need to keep the Word of God at the center of our discussions about the decisions in front of us—it is meant to be our plumb line and our source of wisdom and truth in all things.

2. What Does Our Community Say?

As Christians, we are meant to live in a broader community of fellow believers whom we worship with, spend time with and do the work of the Kingdom with. In all of its various permutations around the world, this is Church—all of us with various gifts and abilities that build up the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12).

Those around us who are fellow believers carry the Spirit of Christ within them, and they can often see our lives, personalities and tendencies more clearly than we can see them in ourselves. We need to invite others into our decision-making process, prodding them to ask the tough questions we shy away from—questions about motivation and calling. We also need them to offer encouraging words when they sense that we are moving in the right direction.

We need to invite others into our decision-making processes... Share on X

If your close community senses health in your dating relationship, ask your friends if they think marriage with your significant other would be wise—and then also ask why. If you are considering pursuing a degree in hotel management, ask your close friends if they see the skills and gifts in you that would enable you to do that job well. To receive their feedback will require humility, and it may also protect us from unwise decisions.

3. What Does Our Leadership Say?

Churches have leadership structures, whether formal or informal. And while leaders are fallible and sinful, just as anyone is, they have been charged by God to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12). Their role is to help us develop into men and women who are able to carry out the work of the Gospel and to proclaim the Good News that Christ came to save sinners.

Ideally, our leaders know us and can affirm God’s call on our lives, and can bless us and send us out into new endeavors. Talking with a trusted leader about the decision we are seeking to make can often (but not always) lead to a fuller insight regarding our role in the larger body of Christ, and that can help us to see the decision before us in a clearer light.

4. What Do We Sense God is Speaking to Us Personally?

Prayer—consistent, intentional prayer—should be a central part of any decision-making process, and it should include time both speaking to God as well as time spent seeking to listen to His response. Do we have a sense of peace when we pray about one choice and a sense of anxiety when we pray about another? Does a specific scripture come to mind when we are praying about the decision at hand? Do we hear the voice of Christ voice speaking direction to us (John 10:27)? If so, we can take that word, that peace (or anxiety), or that Scripture back to our community to ask our friends to help us sift through the options ahead of us.

When there seems to be a consensus with most, or all, of these aspects in our lives—Scripture, prayer, community, leadership—we can move forward with somewhat of a sense of clarity about what decision to make. Sometimes, the clarity is that either choice we make will be good; sometimes, the clarity is that neither choice would be beneficial. Regardless, making any decision in isolation isn’t advisable—neither by the Bible nor by common sense: “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22). Choosing wise counsel—from advisers and friends who love God and love us—will help us align with God’s leading in our lives.

Waiting with Hope Devotional by Ann Swindell www.annswindell.com

Check out the entire the article here, at RELEVANT!

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Dating Your Spouse: No Excuses

My newest piece is up at Todays Christian Woman, entitled “5 Reasons to Avoid Date Night (But Why You Should Date Your Spouse Anyway). Michael and I have had a standing date every week of our married lives–this article shares my heart behind why we’re so committed to dating one another in every season of life!

Dating Your Spouse: Connection, communication, partnership, love. Read this!

We’ve all heard about the importance of consistent dates with our spouse. It sounds ideal—a romantic date every week—but there are a thousand reasons why it feels difficult (if not impossible) to make happen.

Here are five reasons to avoid date night. Oh, and why you should date your spouse anyway.

1. “Dating Is Too Expensive”

If you’re talking about the versions of dating that pop up on social media and TV, then, yes, you’re probably right. Expensive restaurants, Broadway shows, sparkling jewelry—most of us would be thrilled if we got a date like this with our spouse once a year, or even once a decade. Because those kinds of dates, with the wining and dining and trying to impress each other all the time, aren’t feasible for most of us.

But there is something that is feasible: connection. Connection comes not through the amount of money spent, but the amount of heart invested. Some of the best dates my husband and I have had took place during walks at the local arboretum. Strolling on the paths, we had time to unfold our hearts to one another and to enjoy holding hands in a lovely setting.

Connection comes not through the amount of money spent, but the amount of heart invested. Share on X

Now that we have a child, if we want to have any meaningful connection, it usually has to take place after she’s asleep or when we’re out and she’s with a babysitter. We try to have a date night out at least once a month. If we’re paying for a babysitter, our date is usually cheap (or free). We go for walks in the park, have coffee at a local café, or read part of a book together at the library. Make a list of cheap date night ideas with your spouse and pick one!

If money is really tight and there’s no option for paying a babysitter, consider swapping childcare with friends. You can also get creative with at-home dates. Turn your phones off and cook a late meal together after the kids go down. Watch a unique film you’re both interested in, and if you are so inclined, talk about it afterwards. Get competitive with a card game. Relax with a new flavor of ice cream bought especially for date night. What you do doesn’t matter as much as the choice you make to invest your time and attention in one another.

2. “I Don’t Have Time”

If you let other people control your calendar, then, yes, you’re probably right. There’s always going to be one more meeting, project, or sports practice that you—or one of your kids—has to be at. But ask yourself this:  Would you ignore your child’s query for dinner as easily as you can ignore your spouse’s (or your own) need to talk?

Would you ignore your boss’s requests for that deadline as easily as you ignore your marriage’s need for connection time? Share on X

We make time for what we value. If you value your marriage and the person you made a covenant at the altar to love, you need to make time for your spouse.

Prior to marriage, many of us had months—perhaps even years—of lavishing time upon one another. Dates stretched into hours upon hours of conversation and laughter. We prioritized our significant other above other relationships and our time bent toward him accordingly. While we may not have time for hours-long dates any more, we can make intentional time for one another if we really want to. We can say no to another meeting, no to another sports team, and no to another obligation. And in the process, we can say yes to a standing date with our spouse on Tuesday nights or Friday mornings or Sunday afternoons—no excuses. Just as no friendship is sustainable without consistent connection, no marriage will thrive without consistent time together.

When you put a consistent date night on the calendar, you’re telling your spouse that you value your relationship above all others. It’s worth it.

3. “My Marriage Is Beyond Help”

If your marriage is in a difficult place, sometimes the thought of spending intentional time together feels confusing—or even painful. The idea of a night full of forced conversation (or lackluster intimacy) may not be your idea of a good time. But if a marriage is going to heal, connection has to start somewhere. And dates don’t always have to be fun to be meaningful. Sometimes working through deep issues on a date night is just as important as laughing together.

Perhaps your date nights don’t look like a cozy evening on the couch or a hand-holding walk through the park. Where can you start? Might a meal together outside of the home provide an opportunity for conversation that doesn’t revolve around the kids or work? Could a morning jog together offer a chance to connect in a different—and still meaningful—way? Would you be able to attend a Bible study or small group together?

If all of this still feels too hard, it might be that your dates need to be at a counselor’s office, where you can work through pain in a safe environment. The point of a “date” is to get closer to your spouse. Don’t assume that dating your spouse has to look one particular way. Start where you are, and move forward from there.

Read the final two reasons here, over at Today’s Christian Woman!

If you liked this post, you might enjoy: Dating Your Husband: The Hows and Whys.

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Good Friday and the Ache in Our Soul: How Jesus Meets Us

This is an adaptation of a post I wrote last year; I still feel this ache at Easter this year…

The Ache in Our Soul- How Jesus Meets Us There

It seems that I tend to travel a lot during the Spring; this year has been no different, with a trip to what will soon become our new home city, a short trip to the Redbud Writer’s Retreat, and a trip down to Dallas this past weekend for a conference. And so, this past weekend was the third weekend in a month that I was away from home—something very odd for me. Michael and I love traveling, but I am a homebody at heart, and I love having consistency in my life.  Yet one of the sweetest things about traveling, for this homebody, is the longing that develops in me when I am away from home. There is a familiar ache that bubbles up, whether I am in Wisconsin, Colorado, or England—the ache for a place where I know the corners of the rooms, the ache for a place where the walls and bed and blankets are familiar, loved, home.

And that feeling knocks on my heart at unexpected moments: when we were in Grand Rapids this past year, for example, my mother drove us past her childhood home, her elementary school, and her family’s church.  My grandpa was a Methodist minister, and so she moved several times as a child, but it was in this city that she started going to school, and her memories of Grand Rapids are vivid. I loved seeing bits of her life through these buildings—the house where she lived, the steps she climbed on her first day of kindergarten, the steeple of the church where my grandfather preached. And although those places were not mine, I felt that old ache flutter again.

C.S. Lewis has written about this ache. In “The Weight of Glory,” he writes,

These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

“News from a country we have never yet visited.”

Home.

Easter, which we are looking toward, is about many things. But in one sense, it is about home. It is about Jesus making a way for us to be able to enter the Home that we were created for. It is that “country” we keep hearing news from—that ache that bubbles up, that longing that draws us to beauty and goodness and light. The ache for wholeness, and freedom, and perfection—the ache for heaven.

Jesus is the only one who could become the doorway for us to that Home. His body, broken and torn, became the doorway that allows us to enter in and walk into right relationship with God. And through the doorframe of that empty tomb–his resurrection–we get to enter into that home with him, forever. He crossed the threshold from death to life and held the door open for us, too.

Christ's body, broken and torn, became the doorway that allows us to enter into right relationship with God. Share on X

Home. It is what we long for, ache for, desire. In these days of Holy Week leading up to Easter, we can remember afresh that because of the great cost Christ paid for us on the cross, and because of the great miracle of his resurrection, we have an answer to all of the aching and longing that we find in our own hearts.

We can remember that we have found our truest home—in Him.

 

*If this blog post was encouraging to you, I would be honored if you would consider partnering with me as a writerClick here to read more!

How Lent Reveals the Gospel in Beautiful, Powerful Ways

How Lent Reveals the Gospel

During my early years, I grew up in a church that wound its way through the months by following the liturgical church calendar. We had different-colored banners up in every season of the year, based on what was being observed in the cycle of the church. The ministers wore stoles over their robes–long pieces of fabric in vibrant hues–that matched the banners and proclaimed the season that the church was in.

When my husband and I attended an Anglican church for a couple of years, the colors, banners, and robes took on a new significance for me. These practical reminders taught me, spiritually, how to live into time as a ChristianAs a student and now as a professor, my life tends to be built around the academic calendar of semesters and summers. At that church, I learned a new way of relating to time through color.

I have been thinking about this because the Church universal is now in the season of Lent–the period of time between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday that is meant to draw our hearts and minds into somber reflection. It is a season of spiritual preparation and repentance as we consider the cost that Christ paid for our sin, and Lent is a season of spiritual preparation and repentance as we consider the cost that Christ paid for our sin. Share on Xas we anticipate Holy Week–the week leading up to Easter.

Unlike the blazing red of Pentecost, or even the lively green of “ordinary time,” Lenten Sundays are full of the rich purple of royalty. The color reminds us, the people of God, that the King is making his way to victory, even though the victory initially looks like defeat. It reminds us of the royalty of Jesus even as he humbles himself all the way to death on a cross.

But then comes Holy Week, and with it comes a dramatic shift in hue. Although colors differ from church to church, in my memory Palm Sunday is red, looking ahead to the blood that Christ will offer on our behalf. Maundy Thursday, the night both of communion and betrayal, is white, a simple color for a somber day. But in the late hours of Maundy Thursday, the altar, cross, and banners are stripped bare of even this white fabric, leaving the symbols of faith as naked as Christ became.

Good Friday is sheathed in black. The color of mourning, the color of death. In my town, on this singular day of the year, a prominent church in the area unfurls three huge, black panels between the columns of their church entrance. They flap all day as a reminder that death is near–and that death must come before life.

In Christ, death is turned to life; mourning is turned to joyful celebration. Share on X

Easter, in color as well as in truth, turns everything on its head. In Christ, death is turned to life; mourning is turned to joyful celebration. Resurrection–the reversal of the normal order–occurs. White is the color of the day, a reminder that he who first appeared plain–a Jewish man who was betrayed and killed–is actually more than a man. This simple hue is also, wonderfully, a reminder that white is actually the confluence of all color, and that in the resurrection, Christ has renewed all things. Nothing is outside of his healing, restorative resurrection.

Although I am no longer part of a liturgical congregation, I find myself drawn to the richness of the tradition, and to the power that simple things like colors have to tell us about the Gospel and about how we fit into the larger story of the Church. I may not see the banners and the robes on a weekly basis, but I try to remember the significance as I walk through the Lenten season.

In these days leading up to Easter, I want to more fully ponder the royalty of Jesus, this one who left his heavenly throne for an earthly cross. I want to remember the simplicity of this god-man who was stripped bare and bled. I want to take time to mourn the true death that he died, and then to anticipate the upending power of the resurrection and the newness that he brought to all life.

I want to color inside the lines of the Gospel story this Lenten season, by letting the Gospel seep its color into me.

 

The Gift of a Good Fight

If you know me, I don’t love conflict. But I have grown to appreciate the necessity of fighting–how it can lead to deeper intimacy in friendships, in family relationships, in marriage. My newest piece is up at Today’s Christian Woman, about this very thing.

The Gift of a Good Fight: Fighting can help our relationships, if we follow God's advice!

I was out of town when I received a voice message from my friend Gwen. I’d been at a conference all day and couldn’t be reached, so I sat in the hallway and listened to her words. She was hurt, she mentioned, by something I’d said earlier in the week, and she wanted to know my intentions behind it. Had she misunderstood me?

I sighed.

I dislike conflict—especially conflict with people I love. Three or four years ago, words like this from a friend could have sent me into a tailspin. I would have felt anxious and unsure about our relationship, questioning her love for me and our friendship’s footing.

But this time, I was sighing because she was right. I was sighing because I knew that I needed to apologize. I was sighing because, honestly, I was tired of being a sinner. I was tired of hurting the people I love the most.

I connected with Gwen, explained my intentions, and repented for where I had sinned. She was more than gracious. She was loving, and she forgave me. And I wasn’t worried about where we stood; I knew our friendship was solid.

For someone who used to avoid any form of argument as much as possible, I felt oddly buoyed by the realization that I was, in fact, getting better at this conflict thing.

The Grace of a Fighting Friend

Gwen is nothing if not honest. When we became friends, it quickly became apparent to me that she never shied away from conflict.

When our friendship grew closer, I learned she also wasn’t afraid of a fight. In fact, she welcomed it. She was never bullheaded or self-righteous, but if there was something between us that didn’t feel healthy to her, she brought it up. I initially had a difficult time reconciling Gwen’s welcoming attitude toward conflict with friendship. The two seemed to be at odds.

But Gwen’s friendship has been a grace in my life. I’ve learned that conflict, handled well, leads to intimacy. And the inverse is also true; intimacy can’t exist honestly without conflict.

What Holds Us Back from Conflict

I wish conflict didn’t exist. My preference is that relationships could roll along without any fights, arguments, or disagreements. But if we get up every morning and actually interact with other humans, we know that conflict—or at least the possibility for conflict—is everywhere.

Read the rest of the article here, at Today’s Christian Woman!