If you've ever worked with flowcharts, there is a part in the process called "if-then". The if-then process is part of decision making which contains decision boxes, arrows and outcome blocks in a flowchart to represent various scenarios and their consequences.
I don't know about you but I don't need a physical flowchart to have if-then scenarios constantly flooding my mind sometimes. Honestly, I feel that I am cursed with constantly predicting scenarios in my life. It's all about trying to control possible future circumstances in my life.
As much as I hate to admit it to myself, I can't control things that haven't happened yet. Although I know it is important to be prepared, I have also reminded myself that I can't always prepare myself for the if-thens in life or things that I don't know. Many times we simply have to figure it out as we go.
This a proverb (Proverbs 3:5) that tells us to trust in God with ALL of our heart and don't rely on our own understanding. I can tell you that the main word that gives me problems in that proverb is ALL. I can do well in trusting God most of the time but I often fail with committing to Him ALL of the time. I do try and I continue to work on it. I can make it difficult to hand over the control over to Him although He controls it all anyway. The same proverb also says that He will direct our paths.
Only of the things about if-then thinking about life is that we want to make the absolute right decision in everything we do - especially the big decisions. I was struggling recently about a decision on moving and relocating to another city. These are big decisions and I always worry about making the wrong decision but then I got peace about it that even if it turns out to be the wrong decision that God still has me and nothing has to be permanent. He even reminds us that ALL things work together for good for us. (Romans 8:28) I don't have to know all and see all. I only need to trust in the one that does.
Will we always get it right? No. We can't always worry about the if-thens in our lives or will will miss out on the present and what we need to do today. I mean all we can do is to live one day at a time anyway so we need to live in the present and deal with tomorrow when it becomes today. Sometimes all the if-then flowcharts in our minds never happen the way we think anyway.
New things scare us. Fear always grips us when we do new things or make decisions but if you think about it, everything we are doing right now is something that, at one time, we had never done before.
We can be assured of one thing, we don't have to worry IF God is going to be with us. He WILL be with us in whatever decisions we make. We just need to let Him control the IF and just make the best decision we can make based on what we know. We can't possibly base our decisions on what we don't know.
IF we trust in God THEN He will direct our path.
