What do you do in the moment of hesitation?

Why do we make stupid choices? Usually when I am about to make one of those unwise choices, I have a moment of hesitation. That point where I question whether I should be doing it. Usually though we rush by that moment. We don't want to dwell there because we may have to look at our real motives. We may recognize what we are about to do is simply wrong. We override the moment so that we can do want we want. And can't we be convincing in the moment? We can justify and make it sound rational to ourselves. But I wonder how well those sound decisions would be if we tried them out on someone else first? But we don't want to do that. We don't want to bring someone else in on what we want to do. They may tell us it is wrong and that we shouldn't do it and we really, really want to do it. So we go ahead with our plans because we know what's best, right?

Sounds pretty lame when you walk through it. We let our pride (we know what's best for us) convince us that we have it all figured out and don't need any help. Not sure, but I can't think of anytime when arrogance really is that helpful. It boils down to our selfishness. We want to do it so we choose not to listen to anything that might challenge us. Sometimes we may get away with it. We have our fun and no one seems any the worse for it at the moment. But sometimes, it accumulates before it hits the fan. If we make a routine of ignoring the call to be holy, at some point it catches up with us. We may think we are getting away with things, but I wonder what it is costing us that we don't see right now?

I've made those stupid choices. Choices that I knew were wrong, but that I wanted to do anyway. Hopefully I am learning to pause longer during that moment of hesitation. I have learned to slow down the decision and run it by some people who have my best interest at heart. People who will challenge me. Friends who tell me that I am wrong (even though I don't like to hear that). Someone who will point out my selfishness. I still want to do stupid things, but wanting to do something stupid isn't the same as doing it. Maybe I am learning from the past mistakes.

Know some people dealing with those stupid choices right now. You don't get a do-over. You pay for those choices. Those are the consequences, but you can learn from them. See we learn in the hard parts of life. We learn in the struggles. We learn in our doubt. We learn when things are beyond our control. The justifications, the rationales we use don't really help much then. They are great at letting us walk into the situations, but don't help much with getting out of them.

No matter where you are in the process... in the good times, the moment of hesitation or dealing with the consequences of bad choices... authentic relationships our critical. Simply put - get over yourself. Seek out those relationships that will challenge your bad decisions, encourage you in life, and move you towards a more Godly life. Living transparently can be a little awkward for us at times, but it sure beats dealing with the mess of living selfishly. What decisions are you thinking about that you need to involve someone else in? Who in your life can you be "real" with? Who will you tell you the things you need to hear and not just what you want to hear? We do a pretty good job of telling ourselves what we want to hear so we really don't need more of those voices. Someone willing to be transparent and authentic to do life with you... don't think you can have too many of those voices in your life. As always it is your choice, but run it through this filter - Is it wise? That questions seems to cut through the noise and get to the bottom line.