On How to Make a Decision (Or On How Not to Make a Decision)

Last summer we put our house on the market for a month and there was nary a nibble on it. I despaired. I’m not embarrassed to tell you. I’m an introverted homebody who works from home and was having to vacate the house every day most of the day for showings, only to be met with the sound of crickets which also sounded suspiciously like disappointment.

After four weeks, we took it off the market. We had no idea what God was doing or what we were supposed to do. In that space, though, we did still know one thing was sure: Our time in Texas was coming to a close.

Since getting married, I have found my decision making ability hampered. It’s not that Nate stunts my ability to make a decision, it’s that when confronted with a different way of doing or seeing things, I often merge with that way instead of standing my ground on what seems, feels, and resonates with me and the way God made me. Learning more about being an Enneagram 9 has helped me to see this proclivity in myself and begin to slow, deep work of being who God has made me to be.

I make decisions best by intuition, gut, and a sense of surety. The best decisions I’ve made in life (the college I chose, moving to Texas ten years ago, marrying Nate) were all made from a deep immovable sense of surety. Getting married to someone who makes decisions with his head (really good decisions, to be clear) has been an adjustment for me. Many of our decisions for the past five years have been made using a matrix with different weights given to different directions and then adding up the sum value of each and moving in that way. It’s a perfectly fine way of deciding something for many people and can honor God just as much as someone making decisions with their deep felt sense of what’s right. But what’s not fine is when two people who are joined together move consistently in life in the way that feels most natural to only one at a time.

A friend of mine used to say that anything with two heads is a monster to illustrate the need for leadership and submission in marriage. It’s a good adage and seemed to make sense, and like a good Enneagram 9, I merged with it without thinking. I came into marriage thinking, “Nate is my leader and he will be the final arbiter on our decision making.” The thing was, my husband didn’t get the memo. He wanted us to have a marriage where we both brought our full selves to the table and came to a good and mutual agreement for the good and mutual benefit of one another, others, and God.

Because Nate didn’t get the memo and because I kept trying to stuff down any intuitive urges when they came (like a good enlightened westerner—giving more credence to logic than emotion), we have found ourselves in an almost constant cycle of stagnancy. Or, as we have come to call it, analysis paralysis. When we don’t both bring our full selves to our marriage and trust that no matter how long a decision takes, it will be made with the full support of both of us, our marriage suffers.

Today I’m reflecting on the reality that our recent decision to move and where, was made with both Nate’s matrix and my gut intuition. We’ve had a shortlist of places on our matrix for the past three years, four states/locales and six categories we gave different weights to (our categories were things like: proximity to nature, the level of churched vs unchurched or dechurched people, cost of living, four seasons, size of city, etc.). Each locale came out with a different score, but even then, we couldn’t just decide on the one with the top score. I mean, we tried. Believe me we tried. But we felt stymied at every turn. Closed doors in every direction.

During this time, it began to dawn on us that we were not making a Spirit led decision or a decision driven by good desires (even if it seemed mathematically like we were). We were not making decisions that required faith but instead we were wanting to line up all the variables and check them off before moving. Job, check. Church, check. Etc..

What if, we began asking ourselves, we took this shortlist and just made a decision? It’s not like we have every city in America on there, our options are limited to what seems good and best for our family already. So what if we just began moving in a direction that resonated and just saw what happened?

Okay. Deep breath.

God closed one door last summer. We began to move in the direction of the second door. During the first weeks of quarantine, we watched that one close. We began to tentatively try the other.

Within 36 hours of listing our home,  with nothing on or in our house changed from last summer to this summer, we had four offers.

This felt like an open door. So we walked through the next one. And then the next one. And the next one. The past month we’ve just been walking through each door as it opened. We have not hoarded manna for tomorrow or tried to control the outcome. We’re walking with open hands (truly open, and mostly empty—we have NO idea what the future will look like) and we’re just trying to trust the Lord with each forward motion. Even if it looks crazy or foolish to others, even if it feels risky to us, we are trying to make this decision using both of our strengths and all of who God has made us to be as individuals and a couple.

I wanted to share this for a few reasons:

First, we never know what’s going on in the hearts of men and women and the decisions they make. It’s not our job to know, not fully. We can probe or uncover or simply observe, but God is at work in them in a wholly different way than he’s at work in us, and that’s the beauty of the different parts of the body.

Second, marriage is a journey. Sometimes it’s really good and sometimes it’s really hard. But it takes two very different individuals showing up with their full selves, the ways they were knit together wonderfully and mysteriously by God to bring him glory and the world’s best good. I no longer believe anything with two heads is a monster. I believe anything with two heads is a team.

Third, sometimes God closes doors. Sometimes he leads us in one direction and then, in his sovereignty, he leads us in another. It doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind, but it might mean that he wants us to learn how to change our minds, to be flexible, malleable, the clay and not the Potter.

In less than three weeks, we’ll pack up yet another UHaul and begin the long trek cross-country for the fourth time in five years. We can both honestly say this is the first time it feels like both of us are 100% on board with the decision, excited in our deepest parts, and certain of God’s direction—much like we felt when we got married so quickly five years ago. That doesn’t mean it will be easy—we actually know it won’t be easy because we’re moving to the place I call home and we know the pros and cons more than we know them in a new place—but we also know it will be good.