The 10 Best Decisions a Single Can Make: Embracing All God Has for You

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CHAPTER 1

Decide to Be Decisive

We make our choices and our choices make us.

Your life is filled with questions only you can answer. These questions include:

• Will you be content with or conflicted about being single?

• What will you do for a career?

• What kind of influence will you have on others?

• How will you develop this influence?

• What will you do to develop healthy friendships?

• Will you take initiative or will you be a follower?

• How will you continue to grow in your personal development?

• How will you handle your dating life?

There are no right or wrong answers to most of these questions, so the answer is determined by a decision on your part. And the quality of your decisions will determine the quality of your life. This is why decision-making is such a vital skill. Amazingly, however, the process for making decisions is a mystery to most people. Ask the average person, How can you ensure that you’re making good decisions? and you’ll probably get vague and insecure answers.

I don’t know.

I do what feels best and hope it works out.

Is that even possible?

I do what my parents did.

I don’t think about it very much.

One of our friends, radio talk-show host Phil Waldrep, was raised in the Deep South, and he once described a person to us by saying, That boy was as confused as a termite in a yo-yo! Now that’s confused!

We think most people feel pretty confused in today’s world. This is why there is so much emotional turmoil among singles. Our emotions are directly affected by our decisions. If you make sound decisions, you’ll feel better about yourself and your life. You may experience peace, elation, contentment, or the like as your heart responds positively to the choice you’ve made. If you make poor decisions, you may experience turmoil, stress, disappointment, anger, or any one of a hundred negative emotions.

Very few people set out to be indecisive or to make bad decisions, but these two outcomes are epidemic. Counseling offices are filled with people trying to deal with the hurt and disappointments of life. The entertainment world is flooded with stories of shame, selfishness, and self-destructive pursuits. Friendship circles are characterized by people who are frustrated with their underachievement. In our hearts, we all want to make decisions we can believe in and live out wholeheartedly, but few of us know how to develop the skill that makes this possible.

We came across a fascinating website that contains a collection of quotes by a young lady named Michelle. Her list of Regret and Mistake Quotes is a fascinating example of how our thoughts compete with each other for attention. Her list contains a number of quotes that inspire healthy decision-making:

• I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

• When you come to the edge of the light that you know, and you are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen: there will be something to land on, or you will learn how to fly.

• More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren’t too busy denying them.

• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

• Don’t be afraid to go after what you want to do and what you want to be. But don’t be afraid to be willing to pay the price.

• Just because someone messes up once doesn’t mean that within time they can’t find a way to change for the better.

• The times in life that seem to be the worst, always turn out for the best!

• Don’t put a period where God put a comma.

Alongside of these insightful quotes are a number of others that encourage reckless decisions based on shallow thinking:

• Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.

• Sometimes we know we shouldn’t and that’s exactly why we do.

• You’re born, you die, and in between you make a lot of mistakes.

• You are my favorite mistake.

• If I don’t die the first time, most likely I will do it again.

• I’m a firm believer that sometimes it’s right to do the wrong thing.

• I’m not going to apologize for it ’cause the truth is I’d do it again.

• Concern yourself not with what is right and what is wrong, but with what is important.

• If I could go back in time and fix all the mistakes I made, I wouldn’t because it has made me who I am today.

• How come dumb stuff seems so smart while you’re doing it?¹

To be sure, decision-making is a journey that is smooth and clear at some times while it is foggy and confusing at other times. Every decision confronts our thinking and tests our ability to do what is best. Every decision is a competition between self-indulgence and self-discipline. We would be the first to say that decision-making is a learning process that can always be improved but never perfected. The journey is well worth it, however. As your skills grow, the path gets clearer and your confidence gets stronger.

The Benefits of Good Decisions

Numerous benefits await those who decide to be decisive. In The 10 Best Decisions a Man Can Make, I (Bill) list a number of these benefits:

• We have more energy for the pursuits we care about.

• Decisions make us more efficient.

• Decisions simplify our lives.

• Healthy decisions raise our confidence level.

In addition, consider a few other benefits that come to your life when you learn to be decisive.

You will have better relationships. People you interact with fall into two major categories. Some people enhance your life and some take from your life. People who take from others are obviously less healthy than those who improve the lives of those around them. Choose wisely because unhealthy people don’t like healthy environments. They can tolerate them for a while, but eventually they get stressed around healthy people and drift away.

You can develop a healthy environment around you by making sound decisions. The result will be less drama, less turmoil, fewer issues, and more productive conversations. Healthy people will find this stimulating and will want to spend more time with you. Unhealthy people will find it hard to spend time with you and will look for other friends. When you’re good at making choices, you don’t have to tell people to go away because they don’t hang around long enough to be told.

You will have more fun. As you grow in your ability to make decisions, you will get to know yourself better. You’ll discover what you like and what you don’t like. You’ll identify the activities that bring you the most satisfaction. When you have the opportunity to do something fun, you’ll quickly know what will work the best.

You will be perceived as a leader. The Bible clearly states that people are like sheep who instinctively follow a shepherd. Jesus said, My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me (John 10:27). And Mark in his Gospel gives this description of the large crowd who flocked around Jesus: When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things (Mark 6:34).

Jesus is the chief shepherd, but He utilizes under shepherds to help guide His people. In restoring Peter after his denial of his Savior, Jesus said to him,

Simon son of John, do you truly love me?

He answered, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

Jesus said, Take care of my sheep (John 21:16).

Peter in turn encouraged the elders to be shepherds of God’s flock (1 Peter 5:1-3). The point is that sheep look for shepherds to follow, and what separates shepherds from sheep are decisions. Shepherds decide where the best food is, what trails their flock will follow, and the safest places to spend the night. As you become more decisive, people will naturally want to follow your lead.

You will recover quicker from hurts. Unfortunately, we have all been hurt, and we will probably all be hurt again sometime in the future. Some of these hurts are deep-seated wounds experienced during childhood that follow us into adulthood while others are based on mistakes we have made as adults. They haunt us and will halt our progress if left unattended. If they turn to bitterness, they can grow like roots that damage our entire lives. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many (Hebrews 12:15).

Since these hurts are primarily emotional in nature, it helps to make decisions about them. No one logically concludes that living wounded is a good idea. These experiences have such power because they impact the emotional core of who we are and generate intense responses in us. Thinking about the issues doesn’t change them, but making decisions about them will.

Avoid the Pitfalls

People fall into several traps that slow personal growth and keep them from healthy decisions:

• They let others make decisions for them that they should be making for themselves.

• They blame poor decisions on others.

• They decide they don’t need to make changes because that’s the way they’ve always been.

• They make excuses for not making decisions.

• They refuse to set priorities that could guide their decisions.

• They are too lazy to make the effort it takes.

• They give in to peer pressure rather than deciding what is best.

• They are not honest about the changes they know deep down need to be made.

Which of these traps are you most susceptible to?

The journey of our lives is filled with decisions. This is the privilege of grace in our lives. The Old Testament contains long lists of what we were required to do but could not do in our own power. In the New Testament, we are given grace, which supplies the power of the Holy Spirit who enables us to choose what was previously impossible. The champion of this message is the apostle Paul. He has a habit of dividing his writings into two sections. The first section is a theological discussion of God’s grace. The second section is a discussion of the choices we have based on grace. Here are a couple of examples.

In the book of Romans, Paul spends chapters 1–11 establishing the truth of the gospel and the superiority of grace over the law. In chapter 12, he challenges his readers to make choices motivated by grace. In this one chapter, we are presented with 24 decisions we can make that will enhance our lives, expand our influence, and energize all our relationships. Many of these choices are fun and fulfilling, such as be transformed by the renewing of your mind or rejoice with those who rejoice. We can easily see ourselves making these decisions. Others are remarkable feats of God’s grace in our lives, such as bless those who persecute you and be patient in affliction.

Another great example is the book of Galatians. Paul spends the first four chapters establishing the power of grace to save us from our sins. The church was being challenged by teachers to keep their Jewish traditions while adding the gospel to them. Paul argues that grace has fulfilled the law and began a new work in us so that he confidently proclaims, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20). In chapters 5 and 6, he presents another 17 choices believers now have by the power of Christ in them. The most important of these choices is live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature (5:16).

This was impossible before Jesus died, rose again, and sent the Holy Spirit to live in us. Now, however, not only is it possible, it is the most reasonable way of life for someone who knows Jesus. The point Paul is making is that we can choose. We are free from condemnation and have been adopted into the family of God. We now have the privilege to live productive, purposeful, and spiritually powerful lives.

Becoming a Good Decision-Maker

So how do you become a good decision-maker? First and foremost, recognize that decision-making is a skill. It is not a spiritual gift. It is not a unique talent given to a select few. It is not the result of special insight or intellectual prowess. It is a skill in the same way driving, applying makeup, using a computer, or cooking is a skill. Since it is a skill, there are a few guiding thoughts to keep in mind as you seek to improve your ability to make solid choices:

• You will be awkward at first. Every new skill is uncomfortable and feels strange at first. We call it new because you don’t have it mastered.

• You get better every time you practice. New skills don’t stay new. With each exercise of your will, the skill feels more comfortable. What seemed hard will progress to relatively easy as you spend time working on it.

• You will reach a breakthrough point if you stay at it. Every skill reaches a threshold where it moves from awkward to efficient if you practice it enough times. The difference between those who make good decisions and those who make poor ones has very little to do with talent. Legendary sales trainer Zig Ziglar has said, The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work—if you won’t.² This is never more true than when it comes to choices. If you keep practicing, it will become second nature to you.

• You will get better every time, but you will never be perfect at it. The secret to life is growth rather than perfection. Athletes don’t quit because they make mistakes. Business leaders don’t sell the business because they make mistakes. Pastors don’t give up their churches because they still have things to figure out. In the same way, don’t give up because you make a couple of bad choices or you get confused over a decision. Just keep pushing forward to the next decision.

• You will grow faster if you have a team around you. Take this book and ask someone further ahead on the path to meet with you and mentor you. Or challenge a group of friends or your Bible study to go through this book together. Good decision-making is easier if you have people around you who are also making good, wise, healthy choices.

• You will grow faster if you teach someone else how to make decisions. We all struggle with ingrown eyeballs. We evaluate ourselves by ourselves and wonder why we are never satisfied with ourselves. Since none of us are perfect, we stall our growth when we stay focused inwardly. This is one of the reasons the Bible puts such an emphasis on serving one another. When you seek to help others, you evaluate yourself with clearer focus. You’ll see that some of your struggles are common with everyone, which will take some of the pressure off you. You’ll see that you have progressed in some areas faster than your peers, which will encourage you and help you not be so hard on yourself. You’ll also see that explaining a concept to another person helps make it clearer to you. Our thinking can get clogged when we fail to verbalize what we’re learning. Passing on what we learn often frees up our thinking again.

There has never been a time in history when the development of this skill has been more important. You live in a relentless flood of information. Every minute of every day you are bombarded by the media, the Internet, business ideas, and casual conversations. New truths are uncovered every day that transform the way we live.

I (Bill) recently watched a movie where the star of the show pulled out a pager. Wow! When I started my career a pager was the hottest communication tool on the market. If you had a pager, you were leading the pack. Today, a pager is laughable, and the same thing will happen with iPhones, Blackberrys, and laptop computers. They will get replaced with something so advanced and so powerful that current technology will become obsolete.

One of the results of the insatiable advancement of knowledge is a never-ending stream of data that requires almost constant decision-making. Strategic decision-making makes life more efficient, which helps you keep up with the torrid pace of progress and gives momentum to your pursuit of God’s will. Insufficient decision-making complicates your life and robs your energy.

It makes sense to develop a plan for improving your decision-making skills. The most common method for making decisions, however, is to rely on instinct. You are faced with a decision. Your instincts kick into gear based upon your life experience and emotional programming. A decision occurs to you that feels right. In the absence of any other decisions that seem better, you commit to this course of action.

We act as if decision-making is a magical gift that automatically kicks into gear when we need it. We long for moments of great inspiration when life counts the most only to be disappointed when life doesn’t turn out the way we hoped.

There is a better way! We’ve been equipped with the ability to discern a wise course of action in each decision of our lives. We have been given the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), and we can utilize that ability to make effective decisions.

It used to seem to me (Bill) that some people were born with the ability to recognize and pursue healthy decisions while others were doomed to miss strategic decisions or make short-sighted choices. If that were the case, I was sure I was left out of the group born to be strategic. I have since discovered that any time we are faced with a decision, we can perform a number of tests that give guidance, clarity, and confidence to the process.

These tests are the basics of decision-making. The skill is more than the basics, but you can’t develop the skill until you have acquired the basics. I remember being exposed to this concept in basketball. Before I could learn offensive schemes, I had to learn how to dribble, pass, and shoot. Once I learned the basics, I could improvise and combine them to perform creative moves. Later in life, I realized this applies to my computer as well. Before I could launch high-powered applications, I had to learn to turn the computer on, type, enter a password, move a mouse, and explore help menus. As I practiced these basics, I was able to get creative with word processing, spreadsheets, video editors, and the like.

Making choices works the same way. Once you get the basics down, you can get creative and progress to the point that sophisticated decisions seem easy.

Decision-Making Skill 1: The Obvious Test

When you’re faced with a decision, it’s helpful to determine if this is a simple decision or a more complicated choice. So before you put a lot of effort into any decision, ask yourself, Is this decision so obvious that I’m wasting time thinking about it? This simple question conserves energy when you encounter obvious decisions. The reason these decisions are obvious is that God has already clearly spoken to these areas of life or they are generally accepted as the best practices. If you put too much into these decisions, you get needlessly sidetracked and train yourself to stall when you ought to push forward. Consider these obvious decisions based on the best practices:

• Brush your teeth every day.

• Dress appropriately for work.

• Pull over when a police car comes up behind you with its lights on.

• Get a good night’s sleep regularly.

• If a friend of yours is in the hospital, visit him.

• If a friend or family member gives you a gift, say, Thank you.

We mentioned that Romans 12 and Galatians 5–6 contain many choices based on the gift of God’s grace. Here’s a sample of some of the most obvious decisions contained there:

• Renew your mind with God’s Word in some way every day (Romans 12:2).

• Hate what is evil (Romans 12:9).

• Be devoted to one another in brotherly love (Romans 12:10).

• Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position (Romans 12:16).

• Do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13).

• Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor (Galatians 6:6).

• As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people (Galatians 6:10).

When you train yourself to do the obvious when it is obvious, you develop habits in your life that become automatic. These habits make your life more efficient as they conserve your energy for more complex choices. They raise your confidence level also as success in simple tasks builds a track record of encouragement for the decisions that are not as obvious.

This sounds so simple, but it has been a huge struggle for people, especially when it comes to relationships. The Bible clearly states, Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14).

While this verse applies to more than romantic relationships, it certainly teaches that believers should not be romantically involved with those who are not like-minded followers of Christ. Sounds simple, but we all know people who have grown emotionally attached to someone who is not good for them. We all have sophisticated ways of deceiving ourselves as we entertain the thought that we will be the exception.

If you’re committed to doing what is obvious because it is obvious, you’ll avoid this pitfall. If, however, you are trained to follow your emotions more than you follow the obvious, you can easily be allured into a relationship that challenges your