Decisions: How Do I Decide What to Do?

May 11, 2021

Jennie Allen

Bible teacher, founder of IF:Gathering

We are talking about decision-making, and guys, isn't this something we face every single day? And today we're going to start big picture and we're going to talk about how do we know where God is leading us and how do we make decisions about how we spend our time. 

So let's start with just an idea about how we, philosophically, because some people just don't even have this layer, this foundational layer of how we approach our time, and our lives, that they belong to God, and that we were made for God.

Yeah. So I mean, I think of the scripture that, "My life is not my own. I was bought at a price." And so when I think about my life, my life belongs to God. So first of all, I am His, and so whatever He has for me is what I most want, and on my good days, that's what I'm going to do.

But there's a war and there's an enemy that wants us to live for other things. And that's the trick is because that is our desire, but there are a lot of things vying for our attention. And there's a lot of reasons you can make a decision. You can make a decision because it gives you more power, a better job description, that college will get you a better job. You can make a decision because of money. You can make a decision because of people you love. And again, not all of those are bad reasons to make a decision, but if they're the main reason you're making a decision, I think it is a bad reason. I think it can derail God's work in our lives. And what we saw in our lives was the more we surrendered to God, and the more we said, "Hey, we're going to seek first the kingdom of God, and we're going to trust God with all these other things." The less our life made sense to other people and even to ourselves, and the more fun and the more God exploded in our lives. So it became riskier and scarier, but God got bigger, we needed Him more, we were running the races we believe He set us on earth for, not other people, and not what was expected of us. So even just foundationally, we began young in our marriage, making decisions that people questioned, the people that love us, and were wise in our lives questioned.

Yeah, but we never did that without those mentors, and without that wise counsel. Our natural inclination basically in our gifts and that we're going to run fast is we don't want to wait for anybody, we don't want to wait for someone to finally come back around to give us a decision, or comment on a direction we're going. But we always had those mentors, we always had those wise sages that we would run everything by. But it was an intentional stop, it was an intentional pause because we always wanted run fast.

Those mentors largely had that foundational goal the same as ours, which was build the kingdom of God, whatever you're doing, whether it's in vocational ministry or not. And so I think sometimes people would say, "Oh, my parents do that for me." Which I hope we will do that for our kids. But even my kids already know, I do it with a little bit of a bias. I can't help it. When Kate's dreaming about doing something overseas, I can't help but want her to live next door to me, even though that's not realistic. So you got to go to those people that are, they are kingdom minded, and that's what they want to see you build your life around . That being said, we just walked through a season where we did make a huge life change to live closer to family. So that was a time where we had left to plant the church in Austin, Texas. My family lives in Little Rock, his family lives in Dallas. We left both sets of very healthy, awesome family that we love dearly to live away from them. And we largely raised our family away from them. And then it felt like a season where there wasn't necessarily God was saying, "Go do this thing." The city wasn't obvious, where before it was, we were supposed to plant a church in Austin, and that became clear. I want to talk about decisions where you don't hear God clearly, where it was the first time in our life where we knew a change was needed because our kids school was not working anymore, but we didn't get a voice from the sky, and we didn't get even a peace about it, we just knew something had to change. Let's talk about moving to Dallas and how we made that decision.

I think this decision to move to Dallas, it was a growing restlessness, I guess, maybe, a growing restlessness in us. We weren't sure what God was doing, but He was doing something. As these feelings of restlessness have happened in our lives, we have become aware that there's something coming, we might not know what it is, but something is coming.

And so I think that's what we knew maybe the previous 12 months maybe, but we didn't know what it was going to be and where it was going to be. Here's what we knew is that all God had revealed up until the point where we knew clearly that we were supposed to move to Dallas, all He had revealed is to be faithful where we were, to be faithful in the jobs we were, to be faithful in the city, in the community we were. And then it was time as He revealed it. But there was not, like you said, there was not this amazing special revelation where we woke up one day, or there was this real supernatural event that happened.

No. I think we were scared to death because we didn't have that. And lots of times in life, we have really known, as much as you can know, what God wants us to do next. Especially with such big decisions, we were moving four kids from their schools that they loved. And my oldest was going to be a senior in high school. Our youngest was going into third grade. So we had this very dramatic thing that was going to affect our family. But it made sense.

And I'll say this is why it made sense. It was very practical reasons. I think prior to that, we had taken these big steps of faith. This was simply we needed a better school for our youngest two that had learning differences. We were going to have to move anyway to find that for our kids. When we realized we were going to have to move to find that, we looked at, where would we live, and it was near family. If God wasn't going to say, "Hey, this is where you need to go." And you have a family that loves you and loves God, I think that's a good reason to make a decision. I think it's a way better reason than a job, or a cool city. I think we should make more decisions around the people that love us and the community that we have. And we did have family here.

And so that really narrowed it down. Honestly the only two things on the table were near your family or near my family. And work-wise for both of us, this was the option. So we moved to Dallas and it did feel scary. And I wanted to start with that story because sometimes you are just shooting in the dark and it felt a little bit like that. We were restless, we made the best decision with what we knew, we prioritized family and community, we knew we would have a healthy church here, and the best situation for our kids. And then we lept and we jumped. 

And I think God knows our hearts, that we would do whatever He wants, we would do anything He asked us to do. And so I think if we were headed in a wrong direction, we both trust God to catch us, we both trust that that God would stop us if this was going to be bad for us. But the surprising thing was we didn't come in with a ton of optimism, we came in probably a little bit scared of the fit for us, we thought it was right for our two youngest kids, but the rest of us kind of were wide-eyed and scared. And yet God blessed us so much here, and gave us unbelievable community, all of us, all six of us would say this was the best decision we ever made.

And so I wanted to start with a decision like that because sometimes you don't have a lot of clarity and you just got to go with what are your priorities? So number one it's following God, but when God isn't clear, like, "Hey, I don't know whether to do medical school or law school." Or, "I don't know whether to move near your family." Or whatever. Then you go to priorities. And what do you see throughout scripture as the priorities of God, and it's having a healthy community is probably the number one thing next to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's love your neighbors as yourself, and those neighbors and that context of the local church is really the next thing that He commands us to be a part of and to serve and to love.

And so we really encourage people when they're making huge life decisions is, where do you have community? Where are you going to live known? I don't care if there's a better job and you can get paid more money. If you leave your people that God has given you, you leave a little bit of a covering that He's given you and provided for you. And so, that's how we made that decision.

I want to now move into kind of smaller decisions because you and I have to choose things all the time. Whether I should take this opportunity or be home that weekend. And I think that's one that we face a lot. So I'm going to bring up that one, but I think the principle of how we make these decisions can apply to anybody. So if I get asked to go speak at one of your lovely churches, which happens regularly, those go in to Chloe and Chloe brings me kind of three or four that she feels like would be a good fit, and then we make a decision about that. And we sit down together with our calendar and we look at our lives and we have to make really intentional decisions.

And so already you have to hear, Chloe's already said no to probably a lot of them just because I'm busy or we have the parent weekend at A+M or whatever, she weeds those out, and then she brings us just a few, but we still have to say yes or no on those. Chloe's already said no to probably a lot of them just because I'm busy or we have the parent weekend at A+M or whatever, she weeds those out, and then she brings us just a few, but we still have to say yes or no on those. And so let's talk about how we just make a decision like, "Am I going to take this opportunity or not?"

Well, one of the things I would say probably within the last 15 years of our marriage that we've started doing, it was modeled for us, is to probably at least twice a year at the beginning of each semester, go on a 24 hour essentially business retreat with the goal of taking our calendars and planning out each semester. As you start to have children, and all of a sudden you don't have two calendars that you're managing, you have six calendars that you're managing. And so all of a sudden, there may be a great desire for Jennie to go speak at something, but logistically, it's just not possible.

So approaching these with two directional leaders, approaching a business weekend, and a planning little retreat with the understanding that we're for each other, we are for God using our family collectively as a whole and maximizing our gifts and our opportunities. I'm for Jennie being utilized as much as she possibly can.

That's true, he's not just saying it.

Thankfully God has given me a role and in a position where I have more control over my schedule. And so there's where we can ebb and flow with the demands of family. So the first thing I would say is just the confidence that we're for each other, and that sets the stage for when you start talking about specific things and opportunities and logistics of how to make it happen. If we can make it happen and still have a healthy marriage and family, we're going to say yes to those things.

Yeah. I think that's really helpful. And some of you are listening and we're going to talk about how we make decisions in marriage later, but and your single and you're going, "Oh, wait, this doesn't apply to me." No, it does, and it should because you should be doing this with one or two of your closest friends or family members that love you and know you. Nobody should be making big life decisions, even small decisions, alone. You do not see a model for being alone except to be with Jesus in the scriptures anywhere. It is a collective thing, you are making decisions together with people that love you and that are for you. And the reason I think that's so important is we no longer work under submission to anyone or anything.

And so our values and our priorities can't be checked, nobody can question us, nobody can say, "Hey, is that too much for you? Are you really building rest into your schedule?" You've got to have somebody that will be thinking that way. Otherwise we will lie to ourselves and think, "I need to say yes to all these things, because they're from God and it's ministry." Or, "They're good, and it helps people." Or, "I need to provide more for my loved ones." Or whatever. You're just going to make decisions in a vacuum and you're going to miss the bigger picture. And so you've got to have a few people around you asking you those questions.

And I would say we were really bad at this in the beginning, when both of us were running harder and our kids were younger, we didn't have great decision-making processes. And I would say the biggest one that changed my life was just the default answer of no. I assume it's not for me unless I can't shake it, and I feel like God is like, "Nope, this one's for you, you need to take it." I watch people all the time ask themselves questions like, "Should I serve at that PTA?" Or, "Should I do this or that?" I'm like, "Yes." All of us should have a level of service, sign up for nursery duty right now. That is pleasing to God, go do it.

However, and you're never probably going to get warm fuzzies and a call from God on those things, you're just going to do them because they're the right things to do, and we serve the people around us, and we serve our churches, and our communities. But I'm talking about saying that about every category of your life, "I should do this. I should do that." Y'all, apart from just one thing that you put in your life that you're like, "I'm doing because my church needs me." What are you called to do? If we say yes to all the pressures and all the volunteer things and all the ways we could help people and serve people, we will be running around like chickens with our heads cut off and causing no good anywhere. There is something to focus.

And one way that we've done this really well is we have an incredible team of people around us that help us build a mission statement and keep a mission statement in our life. And I would encourage every single one of you, before you go any further, that you land on what you are called to do. And mine is really clear, it is disciple a generation, and that begins at home, and that spreads to the ends of the earth. That is the way that God built me, and that's what He put in my heart as the goal of my life. If anything falls outside of that in any way, we don't do it.

So, I mean, they had to talk me into making sweatshirts at IF:Gathering because I was like, "How does this make a disciple?" And they told me how, and then I was like, "Okay, we can make sweatshirts. That's fine." But I didn't ever want to do anything unless it caused discipleship to happen. And so figure out what is that thing that God has put in you, that one line, and you put it on your mirror and you stick to it. And as you're making decisions, "How does that help me accomplish that purpose?"

Everybody listening is probably too wondering what happens when we make a bad decision, or what happens when we make a decision that the other one doesn't approve of, which has happened in our lives. And how would you say we handle those moments?

Probably not that well.

I disagree.

Well, I mean, I think there's grace in the relationship, for sure, there's always more grace when you make the decision together.

Yeah.

Right. And so...

Oh yeah. He's saying he doesn't handle it well when I make a decision without him. Yeah, you're right. I mean, I do think that you will make wrong decisions. And I would say, especially, like I said earlier, when we were new at running faster and harder, and our kids were a little bit bigger and we had more freedom, with that freedom we ran too fast and too hard. And there was definitely a pulling back.

And so I think that's where those get togethers twice a year of help is we can reel it in faster, we can notice, "You know what, I need a longer break. And these are the ebbs and flows of our year." So for instance we learned summer is a hard time for me to work. My kids are home, there's usually travel involved in the summer with our family. It's a hard time for me to work. And so we built the schedule once we kind of realized, "Wow, you're going to need a lot of your summer off." But I have to work harder in other seasons to make that happen.

So we learned to manage our year, not just manage our day and not just manage our month, but to really look at our whole year and stand back from it and go, "Okay, this is a time we need work and ministry to ebb because our family is flowing and they're coming at us really fast and hard." My college age son is moving home to run camps this summer, and he will need me to run stuff up to him because he'll forget his snacks, or he'll forget something, and I want to be available to do that. And so summer's not a time that I go in the office a lot, summer's not a time I travel at all, in fact, I don't speak at all in the summer. And that's because of those meetings that we had where we made bad decisions, and we got in places where I was miserable. And then the next time we met, we rebuilt it.

Yeah. Another dangerous thing for how we're both wired of being entrepreneurs and starters is that there is a unique energy that is required when you're launching something. And what we have learned is if both the husband and wife are entrepreneurs, you can't both start things at the same time, and still have healthy family and marriage together. And so, that's one thing that we've learned, that there is an ebb and flow, and there was a season when we launched the church, you were taking care of young kids and leading Bible studies in our house. Of course, at that point there was no ambition for anything beyond that. But when, in God's providence, as I was kind of stepping off stage, God was giving you opportunities to kind of expand your ministry reach. And so there was really an ebb and flow and IF:Gathering launched, and that was not a good time for me to be starting another business while IF:Gathering was in that starter phase because I was very involved with it as well in the background.

And so that's one of the things that we've learned is that there's a rhythm, there's an ebb and flow, and that's going to be the case what season of life with your kids. When our kids were younger, we lived in a neighborhood, we weren't thinking about schools, and we weren't thinking about how busy their lives would become. All we were thinking about is where can our family be in a neighborhood and live most effectively on mission. And then all of a sudden our kids started playing middle school sports, and we were 25 minutes away-

Driving all the time. Yep.

... From the school campus, driving all the time and realized that our lives were sitting on the tarmac that was that highway. And we were moving to a season, not any less missional, but moving to a season where we needed to relocate to be kind of on top of that school so we could experience healthier family together.

Yeah. And those are the things. Sometimes it's going to be a missional, "This is where God is leading us." Decision. And sometimes it's going to be a very practical, "This is what we need to survive and do the life that God has called us to make." And so I would just, as we close, this is what I would encourage you to do. One, decide who your teammate is. If you're single, what is that friend or family member that will commit to do this with you, and get away and plan that. If you're married, plan a weekend away where you can sit down with your calendars and really pray over them.

And then I would say, plan the year, plan the month, plan the week, and plan the day. So what I mean by that is, we have rhythms to our week where I have a day where I go in the office and I only meet with people that entire day. There are days where I am with God, and there's not one thing on that day. It is completely protected, it's a Sabbath for me. There's another day that is very focused on my home, and kids, and setting up the week to go well.

And so just plan what your structure and your schedule is, you cannot accomplish anything if there's no structure or schedule. As crazy as we are, we are both pretty fly by the seat of our pants, ambitious people that run really hard, we have a plan, it's not chaos. That plan remains flexible, and that plan often gets changed. But we head into a semester, we head into a day, we head into a month with a plan, and it has changed everything.