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Dealing with Bad Decisions

Dealing with Bad Decisions

We have all made bad decisions – the difference between mature, godly people and immature and/or ungodly people is not that the mature never make bad decisions and the immature and/or worldly never make good decisions.

The difference is that the mature will take responsibility for their bad decisions; will evaluate their choices; will identify what are unhealthy, destructive, decisions; and will learn from their mistakes, updating their decision-making so that they reduce and/or stop making the same bad decisions over and over again.

Further, the mature, having taken ownership of self, once having identified a choice that was unhealthy or harmful or wrong, will not only learn from it, but they will also seek to repair any damage their choice may have caused themselves and others – as far as possible and without making things worse.

The immature and worldly don’t do this. When they make bad decisions, they deny their responsibility, avoid looking at their role, make excuses, and often blame others. They quickly move on to some new activity to occupy their mind and distract themselves from thinking about their bad choices. Thus, they don’t learn – and they repeat the same bad decisions over and over again.

The reason for this pattern of unhealthy decision-making is often an inability to tolerate the emotional discomfort, embarrassment, hurt, rejection, guilt, or other negative experience that accompanies dealing with painful truth.

When we make a bad choice, the results can be emotionally, financially, relationally, or occupationally painful. Rather than immediately dealing with their choices to bring healing and repair damage as quickly as possible, some people instead run from the pain, the discomfort, and deny, distort, blame, make excuses, or distract themselves from the truth with entertainment or mood-altering substances. This typically leads to more damaging consequences and further immature decision-making; thus, they perpetuate the problem.

The underlying root to this destructive cycle is fear – fear of rejection, punishment, loss of status, position, wealth, esteem, or some other consequence. So the immature and worldly, rather than humbling themselves, acknowledging their own shortcomings, taking ownership, seeking to mature – and, thus, experience transformation – instead either don’t learn, or worse, they justify the bad decision-making as good decision-making and repeat it.

We can never avoid the truth; we can only delay the day we deal with it.

The mature have learned this; they have become lovers of the truth and seek to grow in truth at the earliest possible moment, as soon as they are capable. The mature choose to stand their ground and face the reality of their choices and learn from them.

One of the truths that the mature have learned to embrace is that they are not infallible and, thus, are subject to mistakes. They have not accepted a falsehood that perfection is about performance; instead, they know that perfection is about maturity. So they have formed characters with a view of self that accepts that they don’t know everything, that even when doing their best, they can make decisions that turn out not the be best. But they know that they are able and willing to learn, to assimilate new insights, to grow, to develop, to advance and, thus, their individuality is not built upon perfect performance, but a willingness to grow and mature as new truths are revealed and comprehended.

Such a person is a lover of truth and realizes that truth is unfolding, and so their hearts love new insights and eagerly seek to grow in the truth. They don’t fear to discover new ways of doing things or understanding things; in fact, they are excited about it.

So here are some general guidelines to help you grow toward healthy decision-making:

  • Use your God-given reasoning ability united with a clear conscience.
  • Always be prayerful, surrendering your life to God and asking the Spirit of truth to enlighten you, giving you wisdom and discernment in your decision-making. Ask God for evidences as to what course is within His will. Be patient, study, reflect, and reason things out.
  • Ask for input from wise and mature counselors – but do not surrender your decision-making to others. You must filter their input through your own judgment – every person must be fully persuaded in their own mind (Romans 14:5).
    • This is one of the problems for many in bad decision-making – they fear making a mistake and, thus, they seek some other mind, some authority – pastor, doctor, parent, or friend – to tell them the answer, to tell them what to do. This relieves them of the burden of decision-making and allows them to blame the other party when it doesn’t work out. But such people never mature and live in fear and doubt.
  • Understand God’s design laws. Failure to understand the basic laws upon which reality works leads to bad decisions even with good motives. The doctors who bled and leached George Washington when he had pneumonia sought to heal, but they didn’t understand basic laws of health and made bad decisions even though their motive was seeking to save.
  • Ask what is right (morally first, legally second), healthy, and reasonable and make decisions that are right, healthy, and reasonable.
  • Allow feelings to be information that you evaluate, but don’t make decisions based solely on them. Require your feelings to be processed through your good judgment, examining the evidences and principles involved.
  • Feelings of discomfort about a decision should be given more weight than positive feelings about it. In other words, allow feelings of discomfort to cause you to pause, reflect, consider, and evaluate so that you avoid an impulsive decision. Use your wisdom to temper feelings of eagerness.
  • In the aftermath of a choice, be open to new information and reassessment and making a new choice, even reversing course, if the new information supports that a new course of action is healthier.
  • When you realize that you have made a bad choice, own it, learn from it, examine where the decision-making process needs to be improved, bring to bear new methods, and seek to repair any damage previous bad decision-making has caused – being sure not to make matters worse.
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I’m a youth leader in South Africa. We as a youth group are currently using a lot of the material on the Come and Reason site. Since we’ve started using the material, our youth group has grown.

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We listen to your bible studies lessons in our class in Montana. You actually were the main reason I decided to get a laptop, so I can go to your site and listen, read, learn, and print the class notes. I am so grateful to learn the correct view of God and his character. Now, to just have others have an interest in knowing, so I can share it with them. Good thoughts your way.

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It was very touching to hear the testimony of your class share how viewing God’s true character has changed their lives. My feelings are the same – there is so much freedom in knowing that God LOVES me – regardless of my… just, REGARDLESS! I’m still blown away by the true gospel, the fact that God is not ready to strike us when we fail. He is not arbitrary. He simply loves us and warns of the natural consequences because He can’t stand to see us suffer. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS GOD!!!

Ceil V.,  UT, USA

 

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Thank you so much for everything you do! Because of all these truths, I’m excited to be with Jesus! I always pray everyday, “COME TODAY, JESUS.” Before finding C&R, I was always praying for delays, “NOT TODAY OH GOD. I AM NOT READY.” I just need to share more, talk more bout this truth, so everybody will be excited for Jesus.

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Over the past couple of years God has been expanding my view of Himself and His character. Along my approximately 40-year journey, I have often had questions, but was hesitant to voice these and step outside the traditionally accepted thinking, for fear of admitting that I may in fact be eternally lost. In the recesses of my thinking has been the thought – if one blindly accepts (which is widely regarded as “real faith”) and does not question, is this really ‘truth?’ I often find it challenging to grapple with very theological ‘speak,’ but Dr. Jennings has a real gift of explaining spiritual concepts with clear practical examples. The weekly discussions are growing my Christian experience and slowly changing my view of how to live as a child of God in today’s complex world. Finally the whole Old Testament sanctuary teaching moved in my mind from fantasy to reality!

Beverly S., South Africa

 

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I truly believe that to know who God really is the first step to understand ourselves in a balanced and kind way, so the healing can take place. Your approach really makes sense – Thank you for your ministry!

A.M., Pittsburg, PA, USA

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I got the book “Could It Be This Simple?” a few months ago and the reading was wonderful and I was fascinated. I lent the book to a friend at work. She is having a difficult time and the book is helping her to find Jesus and I found this very exciting. She has asked me questions and I can see her life changing.

H. S., Australia

 

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I’m a native Ghanan, but am currently in France for my master’s degree. Prior to this, during my final years at undergraduate studies in Ghana, I was introduced to your ministry and I’ve been immensely blessed by what you share, especially about the Design and Imposed Laws. God richly bless you for that.

One of the first things I did when I arrived in France was to buy all four of your books. They not only helped me, but those I shared them with. I shared the message with an atheist student and I marveled at how God worked mightily in his life. Today this person shares the Love of God with others and debunks theories of who God is not. I want to share what you present in your “Heavenly Sanctuary and Investigative Judgment” pamphlet, because the message brought rest to my soul and I live today as a healthy person.

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Michael A., Ghana

 

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Your teachings about our heavenly Father have changed my life. Thank you sooooooo very very much! I know He’s doing some serious healing in my heart and life and I look forward to each new day to learn something new about Him and to just hear you speak about Him. Thank you, forever.

Nancy S.

 

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I would love to have a copy of “Healing the Mind” DVDs to have in my therapy office. I enjoy having clients check out materials to enhance their therapy experience. I have sat under Dr. Jennings’ teaching at an American Association of Christian Counselors convention and respect his work greatly.

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I continue to enjoy your lessons every week. The more that I research your conclusions, the more I am convinced that the Holy Spirit has lead you to distill out the essence of human redemption. Thank you for your courageous stand for the truth.

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Testimony 73

I have been truly blessed by your blogs and other resources. They have helped me to see things in a much brighter light and to reason things out better. Thank you so much for your ministry. Whenever I have the opportunity I pass along your material to my friends.

R. Noseworthy, Newfoundland, Canada

Testimony 65

I have been tuning into your weekly study classes for a while now and wanted express my appreciation for the teachings that ha been a huge blessing in opening up the true message of the word. Viewing scripture under an imposed law theory always, without fail, raised more questions, concerns, and conflicting scripture interpretations that were discouraging at the very least. Looking at scripture through the design law lens has brought more truth to light for me personally and an understanding of our Heavenly Father that places Him “above all others,” where I am now more than thrilled to witness and serve Him.  I “stumbled” across this ministry a year or so ago and would only watch a few minutes at a time. But the more I listened and the longer I paid attention, the more my spiritual eyes were opened to the ever present truths of scripture. The comprehension of the great controversy and it’s origin by the lies perpetrated and perpetuated throughout the Bible on the attack of God’s character and government is truly priceless. Keep up the Good Work! Your servanthood is desperately needed in such a time as this!

Jeff D., Reading, MA, USA

 

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I would like to express my thanks to the C&R team for creating a platform from which people can learn to trust in God and grow. My life is a witness to the effectiveness of this ministry. Without believing the truth about God as you have shown, I don’t know what my life would be like. I had given up on God helping me with certain sins – it was all useless. Given that the scripture is clear and God is so good, how could I have betrayed him so many times? I was a yo-yo christian; spinning up and down. My faith and enthusiasm was driven by discoveries/threats that prophecy is about to be fulfilled. But when I watched your “Healing the Mind” seminar, it was like a light finally went on. I could see God had no plan to hurt me, the danger came from sin, and that He is working to protect me and strengthen me. Thank you for allowing God to use you. The message God gave C&R saved my life!

Antony N. – Hobart, Australia

 

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You have helped make sense of thirty two years of confusion. The material you freely provide reorganized so much of my life into such a beautiful pattern that has always been hinted at from within, but misguided with my training and what I was experiencing externally. My filipno parents, who were converted from Catholicism to SDA, were sincere and did their best to raise me the right way and I have deep respect for them. However, being immigrants and not understanding the language made for a difficult transition as I was growing up, which also applied to my spiritual growth as I learned the patterns of religion. I have been listening to as many bible study classes and reading blog posts as my time in a work truck will allow, searching for the practical applications of where spirituality and reality meet, and I thank you for helping me find that. You have helped me reach a point in which I can truly say that I love God, that I believe He loves me, and, like David, I delight in His law. God bless.

Emmanuel V., Calgary, AB Canada