Two Right Things

Faisal has been carrying it for five weeks and the thing that is killing him is that neither one is wrong.

If one of them were wrong this would have been over in an afternoon. He is not a ditherer. He has made harder calls than this at work, quickly, and been right about most of them, and he does not have a general problem with deciding things.

The trouble is that both options are good. Genuinely, defensibly good, and he has laid them out on paper and there is no column where one clearly loses.

Each of them costs something real. Each of them helps somebody who deserves helping. Neither of them is dishonourable and neither of them is reckless, and if a friend brought him this exact situation he would tell them, honestly, that they could not go far wrong either way.

Which is not what he wants to hear from himself.

He has been asking God about it. That is the other part he has not said out loud. He has asked, properly, more than once, and what he has been asking for is not really wisdom.

He has been asking to be told which one is wrong.

Because if one of them is wrong then the decision makes itself, and he is not the one who chose, and if it goes badly later he can say he was led. He has enough self-knowledge to see that now, five weeks in, at about half eleven at night, and seeing it has not helped him move at all.

He is fifty-three. It has been five weeks. And the situation, which was not urgent when this started, is beginning to become urgent because of how long he has held it.

You may know that table with the paper on it.

Maybe you have two good options too. Maybe you have been praying, and praying honestly, and the honest version of the prayer is tell me one of them is a mistake so I do not have to be the one who picked.

The half of the verse people skip

There is a sentence in James that everybody in this position gets quoted, and almost nobody gets quoted the whole of it.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.James 1:5

Upbraideth not.

That is the half that gets left off, and it is the half you need. It means He does not tell you off for asking. He does not sigh. He does not point out that you have been given the capacity to work this out yourself, or that you have asked before, or that a person of your age and experience ought not to need help with something like this.

And notice why James has to say it at all. He says it because everybody assumes the opposite. Everybody assumes that asking is an admission, and that a certain amount of exasperation is coming.

Five weeks of not asking plainly is what that assumption produces.

And you are allowed to ask and He does not upbraid you for it. The written word attaches the upbraideth not directly to the giving, in the same clause, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my paragraph who makes that land in a man at a table at half eleven at night.

And you are not being assessed for needing to ask. The word says he giveth to all men liberally, which is a description of temperament and not of terms, and the Spirit bears witness with your spirit rather than reviewing the request.

What you have actually been asking for

Now let me say the thing you have already half seen, because you saw it yourself and it did not help, and I think it did not help because you saw it as an accusation.

You have been asking to be told one of them is wrong.

That is not sneaky and it is not faithlessness. It is a man trying to get the responsibility out of his own hands, and he is doing it because he is afraid of being the one who chose if it goes badly.

I understand that entirely. I would like it out of my hands too.

But look at what James actually offers, because it is not that. He does not offer to eliminate one of your options. He offers wisdom, which is a capacity rather than a verdict, and a capacity is given to somebody who is going to be doing the deciding.

Which means the gift and the responsibility arrive together, and you cannot have the first while sending the second away.

And you are being given the wisdom rather than the verdict, and the difference is a kindness. The word offers wisdom and never once offers to make the choice, and the Spirit is the one who makes that a dignity rather than an abandonment.

And you are not going to be left to guess. The word says it shall be given him, in the plainest possible future indicative with no conditions after it, and the Spirit is the one who supplies what nobody talks themselves into over five weeks and a sheet of paper.

When there is no wrong answer

Here is one more thing and it is practical.

You have been operating as though every situation contains exactly one right course, and that finding it is the job, and that a failure to find it means you have not looked hard enough or listened well enough.

That is a very common belief and it is not in the text anywhere.

Sometimes there are two roads and both are honorable and God is on both of them, and the reason you cannot find the wrong one is that there is not one. In that case the paralysis is not caused by insufficient guidance. It is caused by looking for a thing that is not there.

And I am not going to tell you which to take. I do not know your situation, I have not met the people it affects, and a stranger who directs another man's life from this distance has done something reckless. That is not what this article is for and it is not what wisdom is.

And you are able to choose and it will not be a failure of discernment. The word says the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and he delighteth in his way, which puts the ordering underneath the walking rather than in front of it, and the Spirit is the one who makes that a floor under a man about to move.