Remember those beautiful fall days as a youngster? You spent your time running around playing on the yard having a blast. Then you see it. A nice pile of leaves and what’s better than jumping into a pile of leaves? You take off running and jump right in the middle and roll around. Then you smell it, in the fresh pile of leaves is a fresh pile of dog poop. If only you had taken the time to look through the leaves before you jumped in. Now you’re embarrassed, in a nasty situation and it’s your fault.
I’ve often heard, if you don’t pray before you make a decision, you’ll pray after you make it. We often as adults leap into situations because it looks fine. If we don’t take the time to not just pray, but use rational thought through a decision we may end up in one of those stinky situations.
We should pray not only before big decisions, but often the words we speak. The psalmist said LORD, set a guard over my mouth; keep watch over the door to my lips (Psalm 141:3 ISV). That is a prayer for God to guide us in what we say. As the phrase goes, “You can’t unring a bell.” The same way you can’t take words back into your mouth once they are spoken.
There are decisions that don’t require prayer. I know that may shock your brain, but it’s true. If you have to sin to do it then you shouldn’t do it. If you are in over your head in debt then you shouldn’t buy that new toy. These don’t require prayer, they require discipline.
Get wise counsel, think it through and don’t forget to pray about your decisions. This is what I pray for you. I pray that you will continue to love each other more and more. I pray that you will continue to know God more and more. If you do that, you will understand things more completely. You will understand why things are right or wrong. So then, you can choose to do what is best. So you can keep yourselves clean inside until the day when Christ returns. So, on that day, you will not have done anything wrong (Philippians 1:9-10 Easy English).
Proverbs 3:5-6 Easy English 5 Always trust the Lord completely. Do not think that your own wisdom is enough. 6 Remember the Lord in everything that you do. If you do, he will show you the right way to go.