“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV).

Eyes wide open she stepped into my clinic room, a third year fellow graduating in three months. “I saw the end two days ago.”  She paused, then continued, “I was driving on the expressway with my two daughters in the back. Suddenly the car in front of me swerved to the left, and there was a stalled vehicle 30 feet ahead. I quickly followed the car who swerved but saw an 18 wheeler bearing down on us. In a split second I had to choose the least deadly path. I swerved back to the lane I had left and hit the stalled vehicle. My car was totaled, but my children were safe.”

We all have choices to make, not only life-threatening traffic choices but every-aspect-of-our-life choices. We who follow Christ should make our choices differently from those who follow the world.

Some choices allow us time to ponder, but others are split-second decisions, decisions that can change our lives dramatically—a difficult relationship choice, a lie that would save us, a temptation that thrusts itself into our view and demands a decision, the better of two goods, the least of two evils, on and on—“got to choose now.” How do we as Christians handle the no-time-to-ponder decisions in ways that honor God?

Such split-second choices come not from cerebral analysis but from character. Who we are rather than what we think comes out in those moments. So, how can we prepare our lives so these sudden, no-time-to-think decisions honor our Lord?

In my best days, I seek to prepare for such moments in the following ways:

1. Abide in Christ so when crisis comes, the Holy Spirit speaks, not I (Mark 13:11).
2. Imbed God’s Word deeply within me, so it overflows into my decision-making (Psalm 119:11).
3. Obey that which God has clearly shown me (John 8:31-32).
4. Follow the example of God’s people around me (Philippians 3:17).
5. Choose ahead my trajectory for life—and do not veer toward safe fields or shiny objects (Joshua 24:15).
6. “Be on guard! Be alert” (Mark 13:33a, NIV).
7. Know that I am not the first factor in any decision (Mark 10:43-44).
8. Be confident that God is always watching (Psalm 139).

If I can work on these things, I am counting on God to build within me the kind of character that makes the no-time-to-think choices into decisions that will honor my Lord.

Oswald Chambers said, “If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices…The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appear to be free choices are actually God’s foreordained decrees.”

Dear Father,

So live in me that your choices become my choices.

Amen