by Andy Stanley
So let’s stake out some stationary reference points.
Specifically, we’re going to ask our question in three different ways. Each version will provide you with a unique perspective on the choices you are currently making. Approaching the question from three different angles will provide you with a point of reference that will give you valuable, if not bothersome, insight into where you are and where you are headed.
Ready? Here we go.
Looking Back
Poet and philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” On a personal level that axiom could be restated this way: “Those who don’t pay attention to what got them into trouble yesterday are liable to end up in the same trouble tomorrow.”
It’s not very catchy, but you get the point.
We have about a zillion singles in our church. Many come to faith as a result of the brokenness associated with unsuccessful relationships. In his or her own way, each of these people comes asking the question, “Why does every relationship end the same way?” In most cases the answer is, “Because every relationship started the same way.”
Not only did the relationships start the same way, they were conducted the same way as well. So, consequently, they all ended the same way. We mistakenly think that swapping partners will itself guarantee a different kind of relationship. It’s the same line of thinking that leads us to buy new tennis rackets, golf clubs, and baseball bats—as if new equipment will somehow compensate for a poor swing. Expensive cookware does not necessarily result in gourmet cooking. A new guitar does not guarantee better music. And bad relational habits are not corrected by starting a new relationship.
So our question needs to be asked with an eye to the rearview mirror: In light of your past experience, what is the wise thing to do?
History Lessons
Your personal history is unique to you. And the sum of your past experiences predisposes you toward specific weaknesses and strengths in your relationships, finances, career, etc. For example, your personal history makes you more prone to temptation in some areas than in others. Consequently, what’s safe for some folks may not be safe for you. There are activities that others find it easy to walk away from while you are prone to overindulge. So every decision, invitation, and opportunity that comes your way needs to be filtered through this question: In light of my past experience, what’s the wise thing to do?
I have a friend who received some startling advice when he went through premarital counseling with his fiancée. The counselor told him, “You come from such a dysfunctional family that, when you return from your honeymoon, you need to come back in to see me.”
My friend was shocked. The counselor continued, “We need to spend about six months just working through the stuff you’re bringing into this relationship. It isn’t marriage problems I’m concerned about; it’s the you problems that will impact the marriage.”
Now, most people don’t continue premarital counseling after the wedding. Most couples don’t get any counseling before they say “I do.” So my buddy had every right to ask Dr. Encouragement how often he required postnuptial visits from his premarital counselees and take his cue from there. But instead, a month after returning from his honeymoon, my friend went back for another round of counseling. Why? Not because it was standard operating procedure. Not because of a verse of Scripture. Not because of a universal moral or ethical imperative. He went back because, in light of his past experience, it was the wise thing for him to do.
It was a decision my friend never regretted. And it spoke volumes to his new wife about his commitment to their marriage.
Your past experience must be a grid through which you evaluate every decision. Chances are, there are places you have no business visiting because of your history—places that would have no impact on the average person, but the average person doesn’t share your experience with those environments. Perhaps there are certain types of people you have no business spending time with. Being around them triggers something unhealthy in you.
I know people who refuse to buy on credit because of their past experience with credit cards. Is there anything inherently wrong with a credit card? I hope not. I use one all the time. But for those people whose pasts are cluttered with financial problems due to their unwise use of credit, it is wise to stay away.
I know guys who got rid of their satellite dishes. Women who canceled their Internet connections. Singles who quit dating for a season. All because of this important question.
These are men and women who had the courage to face up to God’s will for their lives. They knew that their pasts set them up for failure if they did not take drastic steps. So in light of their past experience, they did the wise thing. The unusual thing. The extreme thing.
Gut Check
What about you? In light of your past experience, what is the wise thing for you to do?
What is the wise thing for you to do financially?
Professionally?
Relationally?
Where are you set up to fail because of something in your past? Perhaps it was something you had no control over, yet there it is, reaching into your current experience and wreaking havoc with your choices. Does the way you were raised predispose you to an area of temptation to which most people seem immune? If so, admit it. Own up to it. Don’t be content with merely doing the right thing. Do the wise thing.
I’ve suggested that asking our question from three different perspectives will provide you with a point of reference, giving you valuable insight into where you are and where you are headed. Here’s the second form of the question.
In light of my current circumstances, what is the wise thing to do?
Life is seasonal. Today’s sorrow will be replaced by tomorrow’s joy. Today’s anger will probably be tempered with tomorrow’s perspective. Today’s worry will be replaced by tomorrow’s concerns. As Jesus taught, each day has its own worries. If we are not careful, we will allow the pressures, fears, and circumstances of today to drive us to make decisions we will regret tomorrow.
That being the case, you owe it to yourself and to the people you love to take your current emotions and state of mind into account when making decisions. I don’t know about you, but most of my apologies stem from my propensity to react to the moment. When the moment has passed, I discover I have overreacted and hurt someone in the process. I can’t begin to remember all the e-mails I wish I could unsend—I know that if I had waited even twenty-four hours, my responses would have been much different. Consequently, there would have been far less residual damage. When I’m mad, I’ve learned that the wise thing for me to do is nothing. Just wait.
Beyond the Moment
But this angle on our question goes beyond the moment. What’s wise in this season of life may be unwise in the next. And vice versa.
For example, I have no problem with women working outside the home. Our church would cease to function without our incredible female staff. But for some women, during certain stages of their lives, maintaining a career outside the home is not the most prudent thing to do. The question is not, “Should women work outside the home?” Neither is it, “Should a particular woman work outside the home?” The question marketplace moms should ask is, “Is it wise for me to work outside the home during this particular season of life?”
Sandra sold real estate during the first four years of our marriage. When we had our first child, she came home to be a full-time mom. That was an easy decision. A few years later, as our children got older, there were times we toyed with the idea of her jumping back into the workforce. This was especially enticing when someone asked her to help list or find an expensive (read: high-commission) home.
But for us, it always came back to our question. Whereas it might have been financially profitable for Sandra to jump back into real estate, in light of that season of life, it wouldn’t have been the wise thing to do.
No Decision
Every pasto
r is forced to grapple with issues surrounding divorce and remarriage. I am certainly not immune. As I mentioned, we have several thousand singles in our church, many of them nursing the wounds from painful divorces. At the same time, these hurting people desire companionship. And more often than not, before the ink is dry on the divorce papers, they are already in new relationships. And those who aren’t in one are looking for one. I imagine I would be the same way.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with desiring companionship. There’s nothing wrong with moving on with your life once you have closed the door on a difficult chapter. But those aren’t really the issues. For single men and women who find themselves in this challenging season of life, the question they must ask is, “In light of what I’ve just come through, my current state of mind, my frazzled emotions, what is the wise thing to do relationally?”
Dozens of times newly divorced men and women have asked me what I think about remarriage. I give people the same advice. I tell them to pull out their calendars and mark the day one year from today. Then I tell them not to make any decisions or even form an opinion about remarriage for a year. Why? Because in light of their current reality, it is usually unwise to try to make that kind of decision. Some people take my advice, and of those, many have written to thank me. Most people think I’m too extreme. Some of them have had the courage to write and tell me they wish they had listened. A handful of people actually make appointments to come in with their new spouses and get advice about how to rescue their second marriages. I never say, “I told you so.” But I certainly think it.
I feel so strongly about this that I have asked our pastors not to perform second marriages for individuals who have been divorced for less than two years. Do I have a verse to support this policy? Nope. Is it wrong to remarry before two years have passed? That’s not the issue. It all goes back to our question: What is the wise thing to do? I’ve never heard anyone attribute their marriage problems to the fact that they waited too long to marry. But I’ve talked to countless folks who wish they had waited longer.
Look Around
So in light of what’s going on in your life right now, what is the wise thing for you to do? As you consider your frame of mind, your emotional state, and even your physical health, what is the wise thing to do? As you consider your current responsibilities and commitments, things that a year from now may not be a factor, what is the wise thing to do? As you examine the status of your finances, what is the wise thing to do?
Again, life is seasonal. What is appropriate today may be completely inappropriate a month from now. What is foolish today may be prudent tomorrow. It is not enough to determine what is legal, permissible, or even practical. As a Christ follower, you have been called to approach life with a different standard. So you must ask, “For me, in light of my past experience and my current season of life, what is the wise thing to do?”
Our question will provide you with the greatest insight when asked from three different angles. Again, each form of the question will provide you with a unique perspective on your options and decisions. Here’s the final version of the question:
In light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?
No doubt, you have a mental picture of how you want your future to look. It may be general. It may be scripted out in detail. You may have gone to the effort of writing it down, complete with incremental steps and artificial deadlines. While certain personalities are driven to slave over their goals and objectives, others are content to simply dream. Either way, we all have mental pictures of how we want our futures to pan out—a mental image of what could and should be.
If I were to ask you where you envision yourself in ten years financially, you could come up with an answer. You have some idea of what that should look like. You may not have a plan for getting there, but you almost certainly have a mental picture of what you would like the future to look like financially. If you were pressed to describe your future relationally or professionally, you could come up with a general description for those aspects of your life as well. We all have certain hopes and dreams for the future. We may lack plans, but we certainly have dreams and expectations.
Dream Wreckers
The truth is, most people’s dreams don’t come true. I don’t know too many adults who are living their dreams. And while it is true that the twists and turns of life can reshape our futures, that is not the primary reason people are robbed of their dreams. We rob ourselves. We rob ourselves when we make decisions in the moment with no thought of how those decisions will impact our futures.
This is easy to see in others. But somehow, the man or woman in the mirror is always the exception, or so we think.
You know people who have robbed themselves of their preferred futures. Too much debt, too much alcohol, too many risks, too many relationships, too many nights out, too many missed classes. We have all watched somebody we care about trade his or her dreams for a moment, a weekend, a habit, a promise, or a kiss.
As a parent, I constantly urged my kids to make today’s decisions in light of tomorrow’s hopes and dreams. The future is what brings today’s choices into proper focus. Making choices with the end in mind goes a long way toward ensuring a happy ending.
Today’s decisions must be evaluated in light of how they will impact and shape tomorrow. Short of winning the lottery, your financial future will be determined by today’s financial decisions. The health of your marriage tomorrow will be determined by the decisions you make today. The nature of my relationship with my children now that they are grown has hinged, in large part, on the decisions I made while they were younger and at home.
I was reminded of the significance of this principle one day as I listened to a brokenhearted father describe his failed attempts to reconnect with his adult daughter. He could not understand why she refused to return his calls or accept his gifts. She was now married and had a little girl of her own. In her father’s words, she was “depriving him” of his right to be the grandfather he had always dreamed of being. From where he stood, she had shut him out of her life for good, and with no justification. He was devastated.
But that wasn’t the whole story.
When his daughter turned twelve, this man was in the third year of an affair with an employee. His wife knew what was going on but could never prove it. On many occasions, she would drive around their small town, looking for his car. Their daughter was with her mom the night she spotted his car in a hotel parking lot at the edge of town. This twelve-year-old girl saw her father come out of the room with his girlfriend in tow. She endured the humiliation that accompanied the divorce proceedings. And then she didn’t hear from her father for fifteen years.
As much as I empathized with a father who wanted a relationship with his only daughter, I couldn’t help but think, You did this to yourself. You robbed yourself of the joy of seeing your daughter graduate from high school. You missed the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give her away at her wedding. You weren’t there for the birth of your granddaughter. One stupid, irresponsible decision robbed him of what could have been and what should have been.
But he wasn’t the only person whose dreams wouldn’t come true. His daughter certainly didn’t imagine growing up without her father. His wife certainly didn’t dream of becoming a single mom. His decision derailed the dreams of everyone who was close to him. The shrapnel of his choices wounded everyone who loved him. In a moment, the future was changed forever. Nobody’s dreams would come true.
Future Tense, Common Sense
Asking our question with the future in mind casts a trenchant light on the validity of our options. The deceptive shades of gray dissipate. The nature of the journey on which we are about to embark becomes painfully clear. So clear that we are tempted to look away, to retreat to the often-rehearsed excuses that have buttressed our misguided decisions for years: I’m not doing anything wrong. People do it all the time. I’m not hurting anyone. I can handle it. There’s no law against
it. Nobody’s going to find out. Nothing’s going to happen.
The director of our student ministry once asked each of our high school students to write a letter to his or her future spouse. The response was amazing. For most of the students, this was the first time they had given their undivided attention to what they were looking forward to relationally. In a defining moment, it dawned on these young people how their current behavior would be either an investment in or a deterrent to that future relationship.
Following the letter-writing exercise, the leaders enacted a mock wedding, and our students were transported to an event so far in the future that it seemed to have no connection to the realities of their everyday lives. But in that moment, when they were fast-forwarded to a marriage altar with all it represents, the casual decisions of adolescence took on extraordinary meaning. Suddenly, they realized that their tomorrows would, in fact, be shaped by today. The decisions made at thirteen would sculpt what life looked like at thirty-one.
The students were not the only ones moved by this exercise. Our adult leaders were impacted as well. But as you can imagine, their takeaway was somewhat different from that of the students. Their response: “I wish someone had helped me to stop and think about my decisions based on how they would affect me in the future.” Most of us had someone in our lives who tried. But we were seventeen and knew everything.
The fact that the adults would feel that way should tell you something very important about all of us: our lives would be better today if along the way we’d been asking our question. We might be closer to living our dreams if we had guarded them more closely.