The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman has been recommended to me by several friends…and then given to me by a good friend the other day! I decided it would be my first book of summer vacation and I’m so glad that I did. I’ve enjoyed some of Emily P. Freeman’s other books including: Grace for the Good Girl and Simply Tuesday, as well as her blog posts and podcasts. If we knew each other for real, I’m pretty sure we’d be friends! I’m grateful for the way that Emily has once again used a book to point to Jesus. This book is particularly focused on making decisions…who doesn’t wrestle with that??! But she reminds us that those decisions are part of God’s refining process in our life to help us become the person He created us uniquely to be for the sake of the kingdom. “Look for arrows, not just answers. If God has something to tell you, and you continue to place yourself before him, he won’t let you miss it.”
I highlighted several things while reading and posted those quotes below…
- It doesn’t matter what the specific decision is. Unmade decisions hold power.
- The decision is rarely the point. The point is you becoming more fully yourself in the presence of God.
- Decisions shape our lives. But what we often overlook is not only how our choices shape outcomes but how they shape us too. They reveal our character and help to create our character.
- We’re letting everyone else’s agenda live for free in the sacred space of our creative mind, and it’s time for an eviction. This space is necessary for ideas to form, for questions to rise up, for hope to weave her way into our vision for the future, and for the dots of decision to begin to connect in the quiet places of our mind and heart. Good decisions require creativity, and creativity requires space.
- Look for arrows, not just answers. If God has something to tell you, and you continue to place yourself before him, he won’t let you miss it.
- The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present. . . . We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance—and choose wisely. Kevin DeYoung, Crazy Busy If the person you are trying so hard not to disappoint will be displeased by a no, they’ll eventually be disappointed even if you say yes. Lysa TerKeurst, The Best Yes
- God declares his glory in the light, but first he forms new life in the dark, bringing it to the surface in his own time and in his own way. God is with us in the light of day and in the darkest night. “Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You” (Ps. 139:12).