Many years ago, I was speaking to a dear friend of mine, a long time spiritual advisor to me, about a difficult decision I had to make.
I could not figure out what the right thing to do was.
Neither option in front of me was necessarily better or worse than the other.
From an ethical or moral perspective, there was no obvious choice.
I explained the situation to my friend and told him that I was struggling to know what to do.
“I just don’t know what God’s will is,” I told him.
“God’s will is for you to make a decision,” he replied.
That was not the answer I wanted.
What I wanted was to be excused from responsibility.
I wanted the decision to be made for me so that, whatever happened, I would have a clean conscience and no regrets.
But, he was right.
As it turns out, relying on God for guidance does not excuse us from the responsibility to choose.
God can and will forgive us for choosing poorly, but God will not make our decisions for us.
There will be moments when our conscience or our intuition guides us strongly in one direction or another.
Other times, the choice between what is right and what is wrong will be plainly obvious.
However, when our choices are not quite so clear, it is up to us to make a decision and to live with the outcome.
Regardless of where it leads us, we will not be abandoned by God.