The Courage to Make Decisions

Taking time to decide is frequently an essential factor of safety. But there is also such a thing as taking too much time. The power of decision is sometimes seized from us by too long a delay. We should never be too swiftly persuaded I a matter of important choice; neither should we wait so long that we let life waste away.

Time is fluid and never flowing, and circumstances are altered by each instant. It is not possible to reconstruct any absolutely identical set of circumstances. Once we close a door we never open it again on exactly the same scene.

We are never standing still—not even in indecision; not even in activity. Time will be different in another hour, in another instant. And even if all the other elements could remain unaltered, the passing days and seasons take their toll from the total, regardless of what do we or fail to do.

But still we must not be pressed into panic or rushed into deciding wrongly, for there are false and foolish steps as well as safe and sure ones; urges to evil as well as to good; steps down as well as up—all of which further impresses the need for a prayerful approach to all decisions in all the choices that are offered; and for predicating each step upon sound principles; with faith that the next step will show itself.

We have to keep moving; we have to start; we have to work; we have to make a living, even when things aren’t just as would want them. Honest, useful work, honorable, constructive activity (even if it isn’t just as we want) is immeasurable better than inactivity, and may open up other avenues that will lead to what we want, or to something better than we now know. We have to make decisions ad they come, as soundly as we can, not being stampeded, not being rushed into wrong ways, but taking the first sound step we can see—with faith that He who helped us see the first step will then help us see the second. We have to have the courage to make decisions.