Do you have the ability to make a decision that could potentially determine the way you live your life for the next 360 days?

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My wife and I spent the week after Christmas with my parents in Blue Mountain Beach, FL. We love the area and rarely get a chance to stay for an extended visit. My parents recently completed the process of finding a new church home. This past Sunday, we had the privilege of attending A Simple Faith located in Grayton Beach, just down the road from my parents home. The pastor delivered a message from the book of Timothy in which Paul wrote a letter requesting that Timothy make it to Rome as soon as possible for he was in prison and was unsure if he could make it through another cold winter. Paul had done more for the spread of Christianity in his day than any other and now found himself locked in prison. Timothy was faced with a decision and at the urging of his mentor, made the trip.

The pastor, with the congregation fully engaged then switched gears just a bit (but in keeping with the theme of the sermon) and recounted a story about President Ronald Reagan and a pair of shoes. The full story can be found here, and it really is fascinating if you have the time to read. As a boy, President Reagan could not make up his mind on whether or not to buy square toed or round toed shoes. The shoe cobbler had to ask him 3 times, before coming to the following decision. Because President Reagan could not make up his mind, the shoe cobbler made both a round toed shoe and square toed shoe and delivered the following advice to the young boy:

“This will teach you to never let people make decisions for you,” the cobbler said to his indecisive customer. “I learned right then and there,” Reagan said later, “if you don’t make your own decisions, someone else will.”

My experience in church this past Sunday inspired this blog post.