Decisions, Decisions

I’ve been contemplating a choice I had to make. As you can guess, it wasn’t an easy choice. For the last month, I’d been trying to think of more options to consider and I’d made it to five. But I didn’t like any of them.

They include: running away from the problem (in my mind, to Tahiti, actually); giving up on an idea I’ve long felt strongly about and thereby surrendering something of value; pretense and subterfuge (lying and hiding); and doing the deed anyway while feigning ignorance. (Yes, you counted right. I didn’t name the fifth.) During my admittedly scarce free time, I wracked my brain. Surely there must be some better alternative.

Finally, one evening in desperation I asked God to send me an idea as I slept. (Why did I wait so long?!) My sleep had been disturbed lately, because of this puzzle and because of spring’s longer days bringing daylight through the bedroom blinds much earlier. Yet on this night, I slept easily.

In the morning, I didn’t remember I’d asked the favor. It was actually a few days until I realized that I had a measure of peace. And an answer – of sorts.

The word integrity had been rolling around the edges of my mind since the previous Thursday when I’d weed my library and seen To Walk in Integrity. (Now that I’d like to see it again, I can’t find the book– in the stacks or the boxes. I want to discover what truths it would reveal to me ten years after my first reading.)

Anyway, in the peace I'd discovered, I found that I was walking in one of those previously untenable alternates, now repackaged. I’m living fully where the Spirit leads me in spite of what might come. I am not feigning ignorance. I'm aware of possible consequences. Yet, to walk in integrity has been a goal of mine since I first read the book, so I’ll proceed in this best, most right path.

When Martin Luther stood before the Diet of Worms, he told those who would excommunicate him from the Roman Catholic Church that he could not and would not recant anything “for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.” He continued with, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” Short term, his was a painful experience to live through. Long term, it was for the best.

While not meaning to compare my experience with his, we each face times when we have to make decisions whose consequences may be distinctly unpleasant. I encourage all of us to err toward integrity.

I don’t know how my decision will play out. But I do know that for now, at least, it’s the right thing to do.