“You have to decide in advance.”
The guys sitting around the circle looked confused so I let it sit for a few moments. Finally one guy asked, “How can you do that? How can you decide in advance when you don’t know what’s gonna happen?”
“What do the rest of you think?”
Quiet…the kind of quiet that’s wheel-turning, thousand-thoughts-at-once, the kind you can stop too soon or let go too long.
“I think I see what you’re saying. You’re talking about the compass.”
Another man frowned. “What’s that mean?”
“Look back at your notes.” He smiled. “He’s been setting us up for this.”
I laughed. “You make that sound like a bad thing. Do you guys see what he means?”
Nobody wanted to go first, so compass-man jumped in.
“You have to decide ahead of time if you’re going to react to fear or choose a better response. You gotta think it through and practice it and pray about it, because if you wait until game-time you’ll fall back to your default reaction, the thing you’ve always done.”
Another man got the idea. “I have to decide in advance if I’ll take that first drink.”
Guy next to him: “I have to decide if I’ll even go to the places where drinking is a temptation.”
They were getting on a roll.
“I have to decide in advance if I always want it to be about me.”
“I have to decide in advance if I’ll love my enemies.”
As the list grew they clearly understood. Circumstances vary, but the principles of our responses can be like true north on a compass. But we have to choose them and practice them in advance in the small things.
Jesus said it’s no big deal if you’re friends with your buddies. But if you can decide in advance to love those who aren’t friendly in return, and maybe never will be, then you’ve got something.
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