I Check Before I Decide Anything

Mateo's wife asked him on a Saturday whether they should go to her sister's for lunch, and he looked before he answered.

That is the whole story and he did not notice himself doing it. She asked, he said hang on, and his thumb was already moving, and about four seconds later he said yes and they went and it was a good afternoon.

Lunch at her sister's costs nothing. There is no version of that afternoon that touches a balance. He was not calculating anything, because there was nothing to calculate, and if you had stopped him and asked what he was looking for he would not have had an answer.

He noticed a fortnight later, when it happened again over something even smaller, and once he had noticed he could not stop seeing it. Which route to take. Whether to say yes to a Thursday. Whether to replace a thing that had broken, which at least made some sense, and then whether to go for a walk, which made none.

The look comes first. It comes before the deciding, every time, regardless of whether the decision has anything to do with it.

He is forty-one and he would tell you plainly that he trusts God, and he would be telling the truth. He prays about the big things and he means it and he has seen God answer.

Ask him what gets consulted before a decision, in order, and the honest answer is a different answer, and he had never put those two answers side by side.

Your version may be quieter than a phone. It might be that a figure surfaces in your mind before you answer anybody about anything, unbidden, like a man checking his footing before he steps.

Nobody is accusing you of anything. The evidence here is sequence, and a sequence can be watched without anybody confessing a motive.

Something has been given the first word in the deciding.

Nothing has to be wrong for something to be out of place

Let me get the freeing thing said first, or you will spend this page defending yourself and hear none of it.

Looking is not sin. Knowing what you have is not sin. Being careful with what you are responsible for is not sin, and Scripture never treats a man who knows the state of his own house as a man of small faith. If you came here braced to be told that carefulness is faithlessness, put it down. It is not true and this page will not say it.

The question is not whether you look. It is what gets consulted first when a decision arrives, and whether you ever chose the order.

There is a proverb everybody knows, and the middle clause is the one that usually gets skipped.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.Proverbs 3:5-6

In all thy ways acknowledge him.

Sit on all, because it is doing the work. Not in the large ways. Not in the ones with weight on them. All of them, which by definition includes lunch at a sister's house and which route to take and whether to go for a walk.

And acknowledge is not a heavy word. It does not mean deliberate, or agonize, or convene something. It means to know Him in it, to have Him in the frame, which is the kind of thing that takes no time at all and can happen inside a four second pause exactly like the one your thumb currently occupies.

You have somewhere to look first that covers all of it. Not only the decisions with weight. The written word says in all thy ways and does not exempt the small ones, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes that live in a man standing in a kitchen on a Saturday being asked about lunch.

Now let me say something about the app, because it has done nothing wrong.

It is a tool and it does its narrow job well. Nothing here wants you to delete it and no rule is coming about how often is acceptable. The trouble is not that you look. The trouble is that a tool has been given the first position in the deciding, including in decisions it has nothing whatever to say about, and a thing consulted first about everything has quietly been made an advisor rather than an instrument.

You are not being asked to become careless. The written word never rebukes a man for knowing where he stands, and the Holy Spirit is not embarrassed by a man who keeps track.

And now the thing underneath, because it is not about lunch.

A first consultation is a posture. It is what a person turns to before they turn anywhere else, and it forms without any decision being made, and it goes on being the shape of a life long after anybody could explain why.

You are not leaning on your own understanding for being careful. And he shall direct thy paths, and the directing follows the acknowledging rather than the calculating. The Holy Spirit has been in every one of those four second pauses with you.