How Do I Make a Decision Without Feeling Like A Sleazy Charismatic?

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People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Introducing Bible Bashed and the Question of Decision-Making

Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we seek to answer the age-old question, how do I make a decision without feeling like a sleazy charismatic?

And so really the idea behind this episode is, Tim, in my experience, I've seen a lot of people, I've got a lot of friends, I've even experienced this myself, where it seems like people are having harder and harder time making decisions for themselves, especially as it pertains to big life-changing type decisions, whether that's where do I go to school after high school?

Do I even go to school? Who do I get married to? How do I know if that person is the right person for me? What job do I work? What do I do with my finances? Where do I live? All these types of questions.

It seems like people, at least in my perspective, are getting increasingly worse at making these kinds of decisions and really committing to them overall. And so I was wondering, as we're starting out here, is that your perception of things as well, that it seems like people, especially young Christians, are having a harder and harder time making decisions and then committing to the decisions that they made?

Certainly decision-making is something that is a settled part of life. You think about the kind of decisions you make on a regular basis. We make thousands of small decisions every day and we don't often think about all the types of decisions that we're forced to make on a regular basis just in terms of what time you're going to get up and what order you're going to do things in when you get up.

And so from the time you start your day to the time you end your day, your day is filled with thousands of decisions in general, and that's been true of most of life. But then there is this sense in which the kind of society that we're living in, because it's increasingly complex in a lot of ways, we are overloaded with the types of decisions that people in past generations simply weren't overloaded with.

So for many points in history, for example, you think about choosing a profession or something along those lines. One of the things that you would notice is that if your dad was a farmer, you'd end up being a farmer.

If your dad was a tanner, you'd end up being a tanner.

Yeah, it was pretty straightforward for you, your path in life.

Your path in life was fairly determined by your social standing and your geographic location and the knowledge and background of your father. And, I mean, even in past generations, the idea of arranged marriages were much more common.

And so you might not even have a choice as far as that's concerned either. And so when you think about today, though, as the world's been getting increasingly complex, one of the things that happens is that there are more and more decisions that are available to you.

I mean, the sky's the limit in some way. So if you're living in America in general in the 21st century, it is in a lot of ways the land of opportunity. But because it's the land of opportunity, there's really so many things that you could do for a career, for example.

And some of those are going to be bounded by your talents and abilities and giftings, but then there's a lot of things that you could do that are just, you're overloaded with decisions to make. I mean, you can't even go to Starbucks without being asked to make 10 different decisions about the type of coffee you want.

Right.

So we're living in a society that, I mean, that would be a sign of blessing. Like that's a sign of blessing in a society that there's so many decisions. But then it's also for someone who hasn't really learned how to make a decision, that can be a frustrating thing.

And then I know that for many years, the standard advice has always been, find a job, for instance, as it relates to employment. Find a job that you love so that you'll never have to feel like you're working or something along those lines.

Right, you'll never work a day in your life.

You'll never work a day in your life. But then there's been a great number of people who have taken that advice, which I don't think is wonderful advice, but maybe we can get to that. But they've taken that advice and basically just agonized over, what do I love to do?

I don't know what I love to do. And they've made these things a little bit more complicated than what they have to be. So the short of it is we are living at a unique point in history where there are a lot more opportunities and there's a lot more information out there and there's a lot more choices.

And those choices can be oppressive in a certain sense if you haven't ever really learned the basics of decision making.

The Rise of Charismatic Guidance in American Christianity

Okay, yeah. And what about when it comes to Christians? Something that it seems like I've heard a lot is Christians will typically, when it comes to making decisions, obviously Christians want to honor the Lord.

And I think a lot of times they're coming from a good place when they say these types of things. But essentially when it comes to making decisions for themselves, especially big sort of life-changing decisions, they're typically looking to God to help them make that decision.

And that normally looks something along the lines of like, hey, I'm going to pray a lot until I get a certain feeling, I guess. Or maybe they would call it like a prompting of the Holy Spirit. Or maybe they're looking for some kind of sign from God to sort of confirm their decision making.

Do you feel like you've noticed a lot of that yourself too as it pertains to Christians?

Yeah, I mean as it relates to Christians, we basically, the Christian, the American church, if you want to overgeneralize, if there is such a thing, but largely American Christianity has been taken over by Charismatics.

And that's what we're exporting all over the world. I mean I noticed in my own life and just the background that I have, it used to be that being in largely Baptist circles, we were very skeptical of the Charismatic movement.

And due to the influence of these prosperity Charismatic groups like Bethel and Hillsong and Jesus Culture and all that, basically the Christian music has been taken over by the Charismatics. And popular Christianity in America is essentially Charismatic Christianity.

And we've lost the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scriptures. And essentially, largely we're fairly Charismatic in how we think about things. Now most American Christians are not going to be your run of the mill CBN kind of Charismatics.

I mean they're probably not going to say that God audibly told them what decisions to make, okay? But they are going to appeal to some sort of mystical guidance that God in some way in their feelings or through circumstances, through peace, maybe even in a crass way.

I mean I've heard Christians basically describe how they saw a license plate tag or something, which was God speaking to them. Or if you're reading a lot of Gospel Coalition articles, you might be hearing God's voice through the R-rated movies you're watching.

But essentially, American Christianity has been largely taken over by the Charismatic movement. And instead of having a doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture and looking to Scriptures to give you guardrails to make a decision with freedom, essentially what you have is you have some sort of mystical mechanism that the Church has adopted that's going to be subjectively determined, which is equated with basically the Holy Spirit giving new revelation specifically to you in some sense.

Probably short of an audible voice, but essentially that level of authoritative that's going to basically take any responsibility you actually have to make a decision away from you, and basically God will tell you what to do essentially.

So what's happened is basically we've been brainwashed and trained to basically reject the idea of making decisions, and basically look to God to make all of our decisions for us. So the spiritual person is going to be the person who has never made that decision in his life.

He just is walking in step with the Spirit and listening to the voice of the Spirit, and God will basically make all the decisions for them. But then the problem is that on a practical level, it seems that the Holy Spirit is always telling them to do everything that they already want to do.

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because it made me think of back when I was in high school and I was having to decide what am I going to do after high school. I remember one day I was feeling especially pious this day, I guess, and so I decided, you know what, I'm going to let God decide what I should do after high school.

And so I knew what I already wanted to do, but I was going to let God decide for me, and if it happened to be what I wanted to do, then great. But if not, then okay, well, it's what God wanted for my life.

And so I remember I sat down on my couch in the living room when no one else was home, and I prayed to God. And I asked him, what do you want me to do after high school? And then I sat there for a minute and nothing happened.

And so I asked the question again, all right, all right, what do you want me to do after high school? Do you want me to go to college? Do you want me to go to this school? Do you want me to go to that school?

And then when I finally mentioned the school that I actually wanted to go to, I sat there for maybe a little longer than I sat waiting for all of the other schools that I asked about. And I remember I felt something in my chest, and then I thought, I'm obviously getting something from God.

God is telling me that I need to go to this school that I already wanted to go to anyways. And so I am actually someone who's done this very thing that we're talking about. But it is curious that it wasn't until I mentioned the school that I really wanted to go to that I felt like God was prompting me.

Well, see, sometimes it works in the opposite way, too. And so you know it's God when it's what you want. I have a funny story like that, too. I remember I wanted to get married when I was in college or whatever.

And I was looking around, and I couldn't find a girl that I was even remotely interested in. And it's hard to find a godly girl. I mean, it's hard to find a girl that you're period, but then you add on to that spiritual qualifications.

But I remember that I was in class one time, and I just started reading the Bible. And I'm thinking, man, I'm looking at the example of Abraham's servant looking for a wife for Isaac. And essentially he says, hey, let the...

So he's trying to arrange a wife for Isaac. And he says, well, let it be the one that comes to the well to draw water, and I'll ask her to draw water for me and the camels also. And let it be that one that is the one that I'm supposed to bring back for Isaac or whatever.

And so I'm sitting there in the university, and I'm sitting there thinking to myself, well, all right, Lord, I'm in my class early. There's no one here. I'm like 30 minutes early. I'm just going to lay down.

I'm going to put my head on the desk, and I'm going to go to sleep. I'm just going to pretend like I'm asleep or whatever. But I said, Lord, let the woman I'm supposed to marry be the one who comes in here.

A foolproof plan, obviously. Yes, it was great.

It was great.

It wakes me up from my sleep. And one of my classmates, a female, came in there just a few minutes later and woke me up. And had some information to give me about that. And when I heard who it was, I was like, oh, no, Lord, not that one.

That must not have been it. That must not have been it. I must have misread this one. But then that was something, though, that caused me never to do that kind of thing again. I must have got my wires crossed on that one.

Right, right.

It's funny how that works.

God's Revealed Will, Sovereignty, and Human Responsibility

Okay, so I guess, essentially, if we could boil it down, basically, it seems like a lot of the issue with decision-making is just, hey, there's so many choices. We're kind of running into, I guess, choice overload in a lot of ways in our life.

And then the other aspect of it is because we're running into choice overload, there's so many things that we have to think through for ourselves. Which, in one way, is a great blessing, obviously. We should be thankful for that because it's a sign of prosperity.

But then it can be made into a bad thing when we start to say, all right, how do I remove myself from the responsibility of making all of these different choices?

Yeah, and then we're influenced by the charismatic movement, too, where it's essentially basically training us to reject the idea of actually having to make a decision ourselves. Because we can just get the Holy Spirit to do it for us.

Now, we've done an episode before on, does God still speak to us today? But I still wanted to ask you this question for people who maybe haven't heard that episode yet. But obviously, the Bible says that God does actually have a plan for our lives.

I mean, this is a promise that He makes to us, and it's a plan to prosper us, not to harm us, right? That's what He says, and to glorify Himself. So, if God does have a plan for our lives, then why is it that He doesn't just tell us what it is?

Why doesn't He tell us all of the specifics of what this plan is that He's drawn up for us?

Yeah, well, I think there's a variety of reasons why that would be the case. But then there's a variety of examples in the Scripture that would essentially tell us that He doesn't plan to do that at all, okay?

Okay.

So, I mean, if you think about, I mean, the Bible talks about the secret things belong to the Lord, and the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may do the words of this law.

So God, basically, nothing requires actual work or effort from God, but God did go to a lot of, you know, quote-unquote, work to put together the Scriptures that He has given to us. So, 2 Peter 1 basically says that God's given us everything that we need for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence.

And so, in God's Word, He's given us everything that we need for life and godliness. He's given us a roadmap. He's given us the Bible. He's given us what we need in order to know how to honor Him. So, if our goal is to honor God, He's given us in His Word what we need.

And this is a doctrine that we used to understand. We understood the doctrine of the sufficiency of the Scripture. The Scriptures are, you know, a light into our feet and a lamp into our path. If you want to know how to please God, it's not mysterious.

He's not trying to confuse you. He's not hidden His will out there somewhere that you just have to, you know, strain to find or, you know, wrestle to find. He's given us the Scriptures so that we know how to honor Him.

And He's not, you know, He's not trying to confuse us. He doesn't have some kind of secret, you know, commands out there that you have to, you know, strain to find. He's given us the Bible in order to do that.

And then, you know, you don't, like, over and over and over again, I mean, there's just passages in the Bible which tell you that God, like, you don't know what a day is going to bring, right? You know, come now you who say that we're going to go to such and such place and go and sell and make a profit and everything else.

You don't know what a day will bring. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Only God knows, has access to the future. You don't have access to the future. You don't know the day that you're going to die.

God has appointed a certain plan for you in your life. He's appointed a certain number of days that you're going to actually live. But you're not, He hasn't given you access to the future. He's not giving you those things.

And so when we're told, you know, don't worry about tomorrow, tomorrow's going to take care of itself, sufficient today or the troubles thereof. I mean, essentially, God tells you to worry about today and making decisions today.

He's the one who knows the future, not you. And so you don't, but that frees us. We don't have to know the future. You don't have to know what's happening tomorrow. You don't have to know all the entailments of every decision you make.

So God certainly has a plan that's going to involve everything that you do. But He hasn't given you access to it. He's given you the scriptures and like that should be a source of comfort to us. But then what's happening is that you have a lot of people who have basically bought into this charismatic delusion that God has some sort of secret will out there that you have to strain to find that He's not telling you what it is.

And so then like that's just, you know, depressing for most people, essentially, because it's just like, I want to honor the Lord with my life. And the standard kind of person doesn't think to themselves, well, if I want to honor the Lord, why not just do what He says, do the things that His will actually tells me to do.

Instead, they're looking for some sort of hidden secret will out there that God hasn't revealed that's going to essentially beat them over the head, you know, if they get it wrong.

Sovereignty, Consequences, and Wise or Foolish Choices

Okay, so yeah, God obviously has a plan for us, which means that, you know, He's sovereign over all things. You know, this plan that He has, it can't be foiled by anything. There's nothing that will has happened or will happen that could ever stop His plans.

Right.

Yeah, Ephesians says that God works all things according to the counsel of His will.

Right. So if that's true, if God is sovereign and nothing can stop His plan, is there a sense in which it doesn't matter what decisions we make and what we choose when it comes to those decisions? Does it not matter at all?

Well, everything that happens is going to happen in some sense by the plan of God and through the will of God. But then, you know, God is going to accomplish His will through our obedient actions, through our sinful actions, through our unwise actions, through our wise actions and wise choices.

So, you know, there's a sense in which, you know, there is no like, and people talk about this as it relates to decision making all the time. They're trying to find God's will for their life. But then, you know, they do better just to try to figure out, well, what is God's will in general?

And then let me devote myself to doing that. But then God's going to be glorified no matter what. And He's at work no matter what. And He is sovereign no matter what. But then the thing is, it's not that it doesn't matter what you do.

Like, it doesn't matter what you do in the sense of, you know, nothing you do is going to take God by surprise. And, like, everything that we do is going to ultimately work to glorify God and make His people more like Him.

But then the problem is that, like, there are, you know, if you make an unwise choice, then, you know, what a man sows, don't be deceived, God is not mocked. What a man sows, He will reap. If He reaps to the flesh, He will, or if He sows to the flesh, He will reap to the flesh corruption.

So, you can either, like, if you make unwise or sinful choices, then you'll probably experience the fruit of those unwise or sinful choices, okay? And so, like, what do you want to experience? Like, if you want to be well-pleasing to God, then you devote yourself to the things that He tells you to do, which are well-pleasing to Him.

So, you know, we're responsible to make wise decisions. We're responsible to make obedient decisions. And God's given us scripture to tell us what wise and obedient decisions actually look like. And your experience of life will largely be determined by the kind of decisions that you actually make.

But then you can rest easy to know that, you know, there's nothing you can do that is going to take you outside of God's plan or violate God's plan. And even if you suffer from, you know, poor and foolish choices, essentially, God's going to work that together to make you more like Him and to glorify Himself.

And so, you don't have to overly stress.

Yeah, keep going, keep going.

Well, I was just going to say, I mean, there's the hyper-Calvinist kind of position on decision-making that essentially is kind of like fatalism. It's like, well, if God's planned it all in some sense, then what does it matter?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, He's planned it all in some sense. But then the issue is it does matter whether or not you're a Pharaoh in God's plan. Like, you don't want to be Pharaoh in God's plan.

Yeah, you don't want to be Pharaoh.

You don't want to be Pharaoh.

Right.

And so, the thing is, like, you can be the guy that is, you know, stubbornly hardening your heart and rejecting wisdom and reaping the bitter fruit of that through decisions that you'll make that'll last, that'll have long-term entailments.

Or you can be the guy who just, you know, trusts the Lord with all your heart, obeys the Lord and follows Him and gets to experience, you know, some of the blessings that come from not rejecting wisdom, you know.

So, it does, yeah, God's going to, you know, one of the most comforting things is there is no plan B for your life. There isn't a plan B.

Uh-huh.

God's in charge, and, you know, none of the, you know, dumb decisions I've made in my life, God was aware of the dumb decisions I was going to make, and He was working them towards His greater plan to glorify Himself and to help me.

Uh-huh.

So, you can't ever take yourself out of God's will. It's not some bullseye that you have to find, like people talk about. But at the same time, you sow the flesh, you'll reap to the flesh. You sow the Spirit, you'll reap to the Spirit.

Uh-huh.

And so, yeah.

Yeah, so basically, if I could kind of summarize what you're saying, essentially what you're saying is that we are still held responsible for the decisions that we make, but at the same time, God is sovereign over everything that takes place in the world.

And so much so that even the evil decisions that are made throughout all of history, those are a part of God's ultimate plan. And so, like, you know, I think of Joseph with his brothers. They, you know, that's probably the story that most people will think of when you talk about these kinds of things.

You know, his brothers hate him, and so they want to kill him and then end up just selling him into slavery and telling his dad that he's dead. And then years and years later, after he's gone through two imprisonments, he's eventually basically the right hand of Pharaoh.

And he tells his brothers, you know, the famous line that everyone knows now, what you planned for evil, God meant for good. And so, we're held responsible for our decisions, but then ultimately, God's plan won't be thrown off, even when people make, you know, quote unquote, I guess wrong decisions, or maybe a more accurate term would be unrighteous or unwise decisions.

Is that a fair summary?

Yeah, I mean, God's plan's not going to be thrown off. I mean, it's funny. I mean, I look at my life, and I see some of the unwise decisions that I've made.

Oh, yeah.

Me too.

And there's a lot of them. But then one of the things that's funny is that, you know, I've had people in my life who have asked for advice, and, you know, that God's I've done a lot of things in my life the hard way.

And so, I've been able to warn other people, don't do it that way. It's a lot easier. And then when they actually take that advice, it's neat to see how different their life actually is than how mine was at different points.

But then it's like, how could you help people, spare them from some of the heartache and pain that you went through without you having to go through it, in a certain sense, to be able to warn them in a way that you need.

And so, God will work all these things together for good. And He has a plan in all of it. Wise and unwise, good and bad, you're not going to take them by surprise. And at the same time, I mean, like, you know, you are the one responsible to make choices in your life.

And those kind of choices that you make, like, you're not going to make them apart from Him being at work in your life and in your own heart. But there are entailments of it. And ultimately, you know, nothing's going to separate if you're His, nothing's going to separate you from His love.

You don't have to stress about it. And I think part of the whole charismatic decision-making process is a process that is filled with stress, essentially. Because you're struggling and straining to find this hidden thing, instead of devoting yourself to the things that are actually revealed.

Yeah.

Now, you said earlier that, really, when it comes to decision-making, we need to recognize that as Christians, God has already revealed everything necessary for us to live lives in obedience to Him. And the way that He's revealed that is through Scripture.

Scripture is sufficient for all things in this life in order for us to honor and glorify Him. And so, there's a sense in which the more we know Scripture, the better off we are. I mean, that's probably an obvious statement to make.

But the more we know Scripture, the more informed we can be when it comes to decision-making. Now, the hard part for a lot of people is, when they're reading the Bible, I think a lot of times they're kind of expecting something else from Scripture.

I know I've done this in the past, where I've needed to make a decision, and then I think to myself, let me go to the Bible and see if I can find an answer in the Bible. And so, I end up looking through and looking through and searching.

And let's say this is way back before I was ever married, and I'm thinking to myself, who do I need to marry? Let me see what the Bible has to say. And I'm searching for the verse that says, Harrison, here is the name of the person you need to marry.

But then there's obviously not a verse in the Bible that says, Harrison, here is the person you need to marry. Right? So, if the Bible is sufficient for informing us how to make all the decisions we need to make in this life, but then it doesn't have those verses that say, here's the person you need to marry, or here's the job you need to take, or here's the school you need to go to, here's what you need to do with your finances.

If that's not how it works, then how exactly should we go about the decision-making process? What exactly does that look like?

Yeah, I guess I have so many comments on that that I don't know how to...

There's a lot.

I don't know how to start, but... Yeah, there obviously is that impulse. Maybe I'll just start here. There's that impulse people have to look at the Bible, and they're asking very specific questions of it.

The kind of questions that it's not going to answer, and that's what discourages them. So, it's like, yeah, tell me the person who I'm going to marry, and then you're looking up a verse to tell you, you know, Harrison K. Rigg.

When was your wedding year?

2017.

In 2017, should marry Kayla. And so, the problem, though, is that if the Bible were that kind of book, I mean, imagine how long it would actually be.

It'd be pretty long.

To have all the decisions that anyone wants to know, and it's just like, well, I guess it just doesn't address these issues. Well, no, the problem is it does address these kind of issues, but then not in a way that you realize.

So, as you read the Bible, one of the things you're going to find, when I was in early college, this is something I was wrestling with, because everyone was talking about the will of God, and finding the will of God, and, you know, do you want to find the will of God for your life, and, you know, that kind of stuff.

And typically what everyone wanted to happen with that kind of thing was you're supposed to be struggling and straining to find God's will for your life. But then it didn't feel, but it's just like, what am I waiting for?

Am I waiting for some voice from heaven? How do I know? But, you know, it dawned on me at some point, it was like, well, God has given me the Bible, which I don't read. And so maybe I should go to the Bible to figure out what God wants me to do, and I'm going to see what it says about the will of God.

And one of the things that was kind of remarkable to me about this was that, as I'm reading the Bible, it's like, you have all these verses, like, you know, 1 Thessalonians 4, 4, 3, this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality.

And I thought, huh. You know, or 1 Thessalonians 5, 18, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. And so you think about things like that, like God tells you in his word, you know, if you want to know what God's will, I'm sitting there struggling and straining, well, what's God's will for my life, right?

And it's just like, well, abstain from sexual immorality. It's God's will, give thanks in all circumstances. It's like, oh no, I don't want that. That's not what I'm, oh yeah, obviously I should do that, right?

But I'm looking for something else. But then at some point in my life, it's just like, well, maybe, why am I just treating the obvious as if it's just irrelevant to this question I'm asking? Does that make sense?

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Like, this is, maybe I should just devote myself to the obvious things.

Right.

But then this is, if you want to kind of think about how this works, you think about Adam and the garden. And so, you know, Adam and Eve in the garden, they're given one command, essentially. They're told, don't eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil from the day that you eat of it, you know, dying, you're going to die.

And so, like, if Adam and Eve were kind of like we are, then essentially, Adam and Eve would be, they're in the garden, and what they would have been doing is like, Lord, I want to know your will for my life.

I want to know what your will for my life is. You know, which fruit do I eat first?

There's so many. Which one do you want me to eat first?

I got to get it right. I got to get it right. You know, do I eat the peach first? Or do I eat the apple first? You know, and how many of the peaches do I eat? And how many of apples do I eat? And what time do I eat them during the day?

And, you know, and like the way we're trained to think, though, is that that's like the spiritual person, right? Like the spiritual person is the one who's so in tune with the spirit that they, the Holy Spirit just whispers to them every long, you know, everywhere they go, all the commands that he's going to have for them, and they just have to listen and obey.

And that's where you get like the crazy Beth Moore, you know, brushing the homeless man's hair at the airport kind of stuff. But the problem is that that wasn't the arrangement. Like the arrangement was, you can do whatever you want, Adam.