How to Make Wise Godly Decisions | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hey everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw.

You're back.

Relevant. I'm back. Yep. I was gone for one week.

They don't want to see it when you're not here.

Yeah, they do.

No they don't. No, they turn me off.

I was babysitting. That was. And Kellen corrected me. He said it's not babysitting when it's your grandchildren.

So what is it?

He didn't say. He just said don't say it's babysitting. He said, where are your grandchildren? So I guess it's my reasonable act of service. Right.

So our oldest one went on a field trip to Washington D.C. and so hope filled in as holding things down with not babysitting. Not babysitting, not babysitting while they were gone. And I stayed in California. So I just got here this week to meet her. So we're coming to you from the east coast. If you say Ron seems a little slow, it's I am. Takes a few days to Mojo jet lag and our schedule has been nuts.

And we're having a baby tomorrow.

Don't understand how you know tomorrow.

Tell em we're having our sixth grandbaby. She's being induced tonight. So hopefully tomorrow we will have our grandbaby. Zipporah.

We had one in six.

Six years.

Six years. Zipporah.

Irony.

Irony.

Irony.

Irony. Irony. Help me. I'm Southern Irony. Sappora Zapora.

Ron.

I'm thinking of Z. I s. Z A Z.

Got you, Carpenter.

Have they milked every minute of this thing? Her and Chaz, Aeron and Chad.

What's your first.

I mean to tell you, every gadget.

Oh, they got it all.

I mean I'm surprised they got automated burping machines. I mean dear Lord. Every. Every little thing. But. But Chaz is gadgety like that.

Yeah, he likes that.

Chaz is gadgety. He's always been our gadget kid and everything.

I think he's still got every cord that he's ever had.

We moved from house to house whenever we move a ginormous bag of cords box. You remember that?

It's now a big box all the

way back to the ones that were colored like green, red, blue and yellow.

He has it all.

All the way back to then hdmi. Today just a whole bag of cords. And we'd ask him why and he'd

say I might need it.

May need it someday. He's like that.

I don't even know what he has.

How do you know I mean, it looked like it was stretched from, you know, one side of the nation to the other. Just a giant bag of wire. But that's him. He's our gagging.

You got something in your throat? You got a frog in your throat?

Yeah.

You want to get it out?

You hear me when I laid down last night?

Real quick.

You hear me when I lay down last night? Are you asleep?

I was asleep.

He's already asleep. I'm good. I can go now. Tell them what we're talking about.

We're talking about when you come decision making on a decision. How do you make good godly decisions? Because we have to make them every day. Some of them are small, some of them are big, some of them are life changing. But how do you know how to

make 30 minute podcast? You could do a six month teaching on decision making, right?

How do you know? How do you make decisions?

Let me get deep, let me start off deep. As I read the Bible, there are three factors that PR play into the happenings of our life. It's number one, the decisions I make, which I believe is the driving force, which a lot of people don't ever want to come to. The knowledge to most of the stuff in your life you created. I really don't care what anybody says. That's true. Most of it. Can I put a percentage of it? That would probably be vary. But not everybody gets to make decisions about me all day but me.

Right.

There's the. So there's my will, there's the will of others. There are the decisions of others that affect.

That affect me.

Yes. And then there's what I call life. You're in a fallen world.

Some things just happen.

I hate to say that because, you know, I think Bishop Jakes preached about 20 years ago, nothing just happens. But we're in this world and there are things going on that I don't want to be a part of. I don't want for it to touch me. But I'm in this world. If Democrats are in charge, it touches me. If Republicans are in charge, it touches me.

Or if you eat certain foods, the effects touch you.

I mean, you know, I mean, you

can pray all day long, but if all you do is slam McDonald's in your mouth and fried chicken, it's going to affect you.

I control that. Okay. The food that I eat that somebody else didn't do, right. And it's got a chemical quint, don't eat it. Okay. That's me being affected by something you did. And then you got this thing Just called this world we live in, which is in a fallen state. And the collateral damage of sinfulness all around you can touch and affect your life. You know, people involved in tragedies or people involved in a shooting or people got. They were just going about their business and they're in this maze called life. So those are, to me, the three factors I think I could prove to you biblically that play into this is my life. Okay. But the facts remain. Most of the control of your life, God has put in your hands. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man, so with that shall he also reap. So if I cause me a problem, I can decision my way out of it. If you cause me a problem, I can decision my way out of it. That's what a lot of people don't get. They think, if you cause me a problem, you gotta come get me out of it.

Yeah. Or this is my lot in life and I'm just stuck here. No, no, you can get yourself out of it.

My daddy was this, or my mama was that. You know what? If you waiting on them to come back and get you out of it, some of them's dead and some of them's in the grave. They're not coming back. You have to make decisions to get you out of what they did. It's no matter what it is. The decision lies with you. And I tell people, if it's my fault, it's up to me to make the right decision. If it's your fault, it's up to me to make the right decision. And that's the way. If you don't go through life with that attitude, you'll be powerless to go.

You'll be a victim your whole life.

Exactly right. You will go through your life and you will brand yourself the victim, and

you will never walk in blessing. You'll never walk greater than you know in increase. You'll just stay stuck in your situation.

John Maxwell always said, anything worth pursuing is always uphill.

I heard him today. I was listening to one of his podcasts today, Always uphill. And he said, everything in life worth having is uphill. He said everything in life worth having is hard. I mean, just let that sink in. Everything in life worth having is hard. Everything in life worth having is going to cost you something. Everything in life is uphill.

Where in the transition from one generation to another, was that removed from the equation where now, hard makes us run, hard makes us flee, or it makes

us feel like something's wrong with it? If it's hard.

Y makes. I'm not effective. I'm a loser. I'm a loser. The world is against me. I'm a victim. Because it's hard. Everything's hard worth having. Yeah, everything. Even that thing. I don't know who's this is with.

Pick your hard, choose your hard.

I've seen that now. Posted by several people. You know, losing weight's hard. Being fat's hard. You know, exercising's hard. Aging too rapidly is hard. Eating healthy is hard. Getting sick is hard. And it really chews your heart. And so I go back to this as God has designed it. There are other factors. You don't have to get on the thread, on a YouTube and blast me in hope. Well, you don't know what I've been through, and I'm still dealing with it. I get that I said that you're living in a life where you catch the collateral damage and you also have other people's collateral damage that affect you. But. But all of it still will go back to. How are you going to respond? The decision is still in your hands. Now, having said that, I believe great decision making. Hope is a skill.

Yeah.

I believe you can learn it.

Yeah, you can learn it.

I believe you can acquire it. I don't believe some people are born with the ability to make good decisions. No, some people are cursed and they can't make a good decision. No, it is a skill that is learned and is acquired because all decision

making is based with wisdom, and wisdom can be increased upon.

And I got a big thing. I just got through studying. I told. I tell people these are unscripted, and they are. But sometimes I will bring, you know, notes in here with me if we pick out something that I want to talk about. I got some things I want to share. I did a big teaching for my next ministerial fellowship. Me, when I get my pastors together, I did a big teaching, actually, on decision making. I didn't know we were going to talk about this today till 10 minutes before we walked in there. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm armed for some of that. Number one. Let me hit it. This right here. Here we go. If there's a harvest on the other side of every decision, if the decision is the seed and there's a harvest, what is the desired harvest? Has anybody stopped long enough? That sounds so simple. But sometimes we make decisions and when. Wait a minute. What is the outcome I'm wanting? What is the outcome you want with your money when you're 50? Okay. Are you Making decisions today.

Right.

That give you that outcome.

Do you want your bank account to look different in 10 years than it does today?

Okay, what are you doing today, doing today exactly?

To make your bank account look different.

Like you, you and I, man, I hate to even say this. For the first time in our life, last couple of years, we're talking about, you know, that day, that day where, you know, I'm not the quarterback and you're the tailback anymore, that it's going to be somebody else's. What do we want that day to look like? And we have been restructuring. We have gotten people to help us. We redoing insurance policies, we're building trusts. We're doing everything. Why? I have a desired outcome out here, but I can't start here.

Right.

I got to start here. Why? Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. If I don't plant it and make the decision for it here, the desired outcome ain't going to happen there. And I see so many people that they live today like they have no desired outcome.

It's true. They just act like magically great things are going to happen. But that's not true.

And bitter if it doesn't.

It's not true.

Bitter if great results come from great actions.

That's so good. That is so good. Keep that thought right there.

You can't hold. You can't make me hope.

Great results come from that. Yep. You got to wait. You got to wait because we got to talk about our wonderful advertiser, Green Chef. We love them. So, I mean, you know, we hear all these advertisements all the time about healthy food eating healthy, but it, yes, it is, it's very. But it's, it gets annoying with misleading healthy meals and, you know, tired of just trying to lock in for another what new trend. But Green Chef cuts through the noise as the trusted authority in clean eating, delivering only real farm sourced ingredients. Trust every bite. With over 40 clean, customized weekly recipes designed to give you peace of mind, take control of your family's health without the stress. Let Green Chef do the research, meal planning and grocery shopping. I love that part. Enjoy low prep, low mass meals for every lifestyle. We love Green Chef and honestly, once you try it, you'll get it. So head to greenchef.com 50Ron&Hope and use code 50, that's 5, 0Ron and Hope to get 50% off your first month, then 20% off for two months with free shipping. That's code 50Ron&Hope@greenchef.com 50Ron and Hope all right, go, Ron. I messed up your thought. I messed up your thought, but here we go. If you want the desired outcome, you got.

Let me back up. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever man, so with that shall he also reap. Galatians 6, 7, 9. In other words, for those of you who do nothing but expecting something that would make a mockery of God that

annoys me so bad, that's one of my.

God has a system. I give you the keys of the kingdom. The kingdom has a system. The system is keys. So with every outcome, there's a key to access it. If you could get something out of nothing, but I have to do something to get something, God would be mocked. So when you sit there and overanalyze, when you sit there and overthink, or when you sit there and waste time, waste energy, fruitless decision making that has no plan or no outcome in mind, then you would make a mockery of God's system. If you could just magically appear at some great destiny one day. But you had to make no decision to get there.

No.

So God's system is set up in such a way, what do you want tomorrow? Plant for it today. The majority of that is decision making. I do say words are seed, money is seed. But your greatest seed is probably the decision you make. And it's going to have an outcome.

This. Every decision has an outcome.

And I don't mind, I don't mind saying this. I'm talking about details. I don't want to go back there. It's way in our rearview mirror. But, you know, I had a. I had a plan when we first moved west coast. I had a succession plan in place and hope, you know what? It didn't go according to my decisions. And I went back. Okay. I don't necessarily think everything was my fault, but I went back and apologized.

We went on an apology tour.

I called it the apology tour.

Yes.

Why? Because people were affected, hurt and affected by a decision I made. Does not matter the intent of my decision. It matters the reality of my decision. And so many people will judge themselves on their intentions. You can't judge yourself on intentions. You have to judge yourself on results and outcomes. And the fact is, we did not achieve the outcomes I had desired. And a lot of people got caught up in that in a bad way. And I felt like I had a responsibility to go and say, this isn't the way I planned. This isn't what I wanted. But I want you to know you got caught up in a decision that I made, and I owe you an apology. So this is not just something that me and you up here talking about. I live by this right here. The decision was mine, and good or bad, I got to take responsibility for it. And I think that is a sign of maturity. When you make a good decision, you're humble. And when you make a bad decision, you apologize and own it, and then you go on to the next one. The next thing that keeps people from these positive outcomes, I think, is paralysis by analysis. That's an old leadership term.

We know somebody like that.

We do. Chaz is a classic overthinker. You know what? I heard a psychologist. Was it Jordan? Was it Jordan Peterson? I can't remember. I heard a clinical psychologist say, don't be too hard on the overthinker, because the overthinker also is showing how much the person cares.

Yeah. Cause they want to make the right decision.

They want to make it right. And so a lot of times we kind of take batting practice with the classic overthinker. But the fact is, the overthinker, normally by personality trait, cares very deeply.

And that's why they're overthinking, is because they don't want to make a bad decision. But the problem with that is you overthink so much that you end up not making a decision.

You don't make a decision at all. And great actions, great results come from great actions. And so there's somebody listening to us. We never try to preach this, but the result you want is waiting on you to act. And until you act, it's a wish. It's not a plan, because you hoped. A little piece of hope is not a strategy. You know, hope is not a strategy, and wishing is not a strategy. But is there a plan in place that takes you there? And may I tell.

And God, God blesses the diligent. He really is. He is a diligent of the diligent. And you can't get mad at people who have great outcomes when they've been diligent and you're sitting there doing nothing,

you didn't see their seed.

Right.

You resent their harvest, but you didn't see their seed. Let me tell you something. If somebody's sitting in any kind of blessing, they didn't just arrive. No, there is a journey. There is a path that took them there. We were talking today about a 35th anniversary this year, remember? And I think you actually called together a meeting. I got into it a little bit late. And you were very passionate about It. I was kind of having to be talked into it because my thing was, we pastor so many people now that weren't a part at all whatsoever of what's now over 35 years.

So here it is. This is Redemption's 35th year in August.

And so we're talking about how to start getting this on people's radar and culminate in August, the month that we started the church in 1991, culminating then and having, you know, a big month celebration. Yeah. And my whole thing was, how do we make people feel a journey that many of them were not a part of or a history that they were not a part of. And so we talked through that today. I said all that to say this. We did. 35 years didn't just arrive. No, there is a.

We have worked our tails.

Every story after a story, after a story after a story.

Oh, goodness gracious.

Seed after seed that got us here

makes me tired thinking about it.

So if anybody, you know, ever has any little slight comment about anything in life that I'm enjoying, I sit back. You know, I used to. I used to let that thing kind of knock me down. Now I'm like, you know what? Until you've seen my seed, don't have an opinion about my harvest because.

And keep enjoying a mediocre life, because you'll never get one better if you don't get your butt out there and

work like we did and celebrate the fact that somebody else did, you know? So. So, number one, what is the desired outcome? Number two, who is the decision for?

The what?

Who is the decision for?

Okay. Who is the decision for?

Who is the decision for? Is this a personal decision? Because there are a lot of personal decisions that would look a lot different than if I'm making a decision for my family. There's a lot of family decisions that will look a lot different than if I'm making it for my organization.

Yeah. Because some are more critical than others.

What did I tell you? One of the hardest things is, for me is my children are a part of my family and a part of my organization.

I know it's hard to navigate, and

what you would do for an organization doesn't help the family. And what you do sometimes family doesn't help the organization. And I said, those are difficult waters to navigate. And anybody who employs. That. Employs family has told me those are some of the most difficult waters to navigate. So who are you making the decision? Is this a personal decision? Okay, well, you know, I'm sitting here, and I'm looking at Taking this job in Ohio. Wait a minute. They're offering you 50 more thousand dollars a year. But your kids love their school.

Yeah. And they love their grandparents who live in their parents city.

And your wife just picked out the tile in all the bathrooms. And does that stop you? Not necessarily. But there are other factors. So what is my desired outcome now? What are all the factors that come into play?

And sometimes you have to make a bad decision.

Oh, God.

And learn a lot of lessons.

Fail forward.

You might end up moving to Ohio, but then you'll turn around and move right back where you were because it just. You realize it wasn't worth it.

Moved out of California. We hated to see them go. And moved to Texas and a year later came calling. Is there a spot? Yeah, we want to come back, you know, because Texas was fine, but it ain't California. And so we opened the door and came back.

Then we had another staff member who moved from South Carolina, didn't we, to Florida? Yeah, sure did. And then they moved back.

Yes.

Because they missed us.

You think so?

Yes, because they missed us. Wasn't that their children missed us? Minister of lunch. Yes, but I think he missed us. We're being funny because he's sitting right over there.

We shut down in Greenville.

Yep.

And then had to come back. But what have I told you many, many times, if I had to do it again.

Yep.

We would have never shut that.

Yep. We would have done it differently. I mean, that's just life.

It's life.

You live in life.

What do you do? You fail forward.

Yes.

That's not original.

So. Not that there is John.

I think it's John Mason.

Not that there's an ABC 1, 2, 3 of decision making that works every single time. There will be times you make bad one and you say, man, I gotta chunk that up as a mistake and I gotta learn and I gotta go back with egg on my face and I gotta admit it and I gotta do it differently.

Okay. What's the desired outcome? What are the factors? Who is the decision for? How many people will be affected? Then number three, here's the next thing. What are my options? What are my options? The key to good decision making is narrowing down options. You can't go through life with a million options. I. I had somebody tell me that's

the paralysis of analysis.

Too many.

Too many options. You get so, like, stuck. I think that's the thing that's happening with this generation and why they're not marrying or while they're marrying wrong.

I think they go on 10.

Because they go, there's too much swiping. There's too many options.

Wow. Why would I. I don't know who to marry. There's tens of thousands. Well, instead of I met you. That's my only option, right? There were no more options when I met you. It doesn't work like that today. And everybody can pick up their phone and I don't care what it is. You got time. You go on Amazon. What do you have? A world of options.

Oh, I love Amazon.

You see, that's the same thing.

And every woman in the world loves Amazon.

What are your options? What are my different options to get there? I had hope. You remember, when did I invite Sam Chan and Phil Cooke in?

Babe, how many times have you.

No, that was the time. And they told me we were doing 122 ministries, I think, at that time. And they looked at me, they said, ron, you don't even know what y' all are doing. How in the world do all those members in your church know what y' all are doing? And they told me the key going forward was not what I said yes to, but what.

What you said no to.

What? Eliminate options and the path becomes clearer. So some of you are going to have to narrow it down from 20 or 30 things to two or three. What are the options that will get me there? And then you choose what you feel like is the best option based on the information you have at the time. Let me go to the next thing. Number the next one. I think number four. When you're choosing your options, how do you do that? You analyze pros and cons. I do that like crazy.

I do, too.

I do that crazy.

But I think at the end of the day, Ron, as Christians, and I think that's the majority of the people who are listening to us, people who, you know are following Christ, who love Jesus, who want to live their life right. I believe after you've done all of those things, you've got to let the peace of God rule in your life. When it comes down to making a decision, the Bible says to let the peace of God rule. And that word rule is umpire. It counts the decision in or out. If you've got that gnawing feeling on the inside of you, that's usually a no. But if you've got the peace, that's the go ahead to whatever decision it is.

I'll tell you another thing about decision that's just out off the cuff. This is going to sound very corporate, but I think it's very spiritual. If you have these options, okay, I got three options. Then I think there's this other thing that Las Vegas could teach you a lesson about called probability. Sometimes the enemy will talk you in that the probability of a thing is a lot higher than it really is. A lot of times the things I've spent the most anxiety and worry over never even don't happen. Yeah, but the enemy will think you got a 20% probability of something good coming out of this, 80% of something bad. And here again, you don't do nothing.

But then you could go into neuroscience. I mean, it just goes into a big old rabbit hole of your brain is in a loop psychology. It's in a lo of what you have focused on and what you've allowed. If you're a negative person and if you see the cup as half empty every single time, then you are. The probability is going to be in your mind.

This in the mind happens in time, negative.

And then it will happen for you. So you have got to come to a place where you start to believe what God says about your life. You start to speak what God says about your life. Your brain gets in a loop. And the good things do start happening in your life. Well, because faith has put it out there, right?

So if they come to me and say, pastor, we're not meeting budget, and you know, we had to look at where is a place where we spend an unbelievable amount of money and we may need to cut something. Well, security. You remember that?

Yep.

That was a scary conversation. Because we keep things locked up pretty tight. Why? Because we've had a lot of bad experiences, quite honestly. But in my mind, I didn't know it then what I was doing, but when I was going, okay, we can do security first shift and maybe third, what am I doing? Probability, something would more likely need to be secured this time than it would during this time. And then you sit there and try to mitigate the chances of something going bad. And you sit there and go through all these things in your mind. Don't let decision making become quicksand when I tell you these things that we need to go through this mental process. If it's a big decision, it demands and deserves some of your time and thought. But the stuff that you're going on through the day, you don't need to go through a decision tree like I'm

talking about, am I eating pizza today or am I eating a sandwich?

No, no. Are you picking up the kids or am I picking up the kids? You don't have to go through that what we're talking about, career change, life partners. We're talking about things that determine direction in life. Things where you're rolling the dice with your future. These are the things where it deserves this amount of time and thought. And then you hope that your decisions have brought you to a place of resolve, where you have made a decision that has ultimately resolved your problem or brought you to a place of solution. To me, that's the goal of every decision is solution.

It is. Well, the goal of every decision is that you've made a wise decision which

will bring about a great solution.

Right, A great solution. Not just solution. You want a great solution. And that is founded on wisdom. And the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So if you are not the type of person who is like God, is this the right decision? God, I want to make the right decision. The decision you have for me, you know, doing it in fear and trembling of. I don't want to get outside of a God decision. That is where wisdom leads you.

I'm going to put you on the spot. Let's wind it down, but I'm going to put you on the spot. She's not prepared for this. So don't judge the answer too. What would you say to the person Hope, who is an adult. I'm not talking about a teenager. An adult. But tends to fly by the seat of their pants.

That's not a disciplined person.

I've been there. But I mean, their decisions are just whatever.

Right? Right. That's not a disciplined, wise person. And I've been there. I've been there. And I would tell them you're going to continually have train wreck after train wreck until you discipline yourself to reign your flesh in.

So you think that's a flesh thing?

I do.

Lying by the seat of your past.

I think it's completely not the fear of the Lord. Yeah. Discipline is spiritual. And that is reining your life in because you want to please God with your life. So you're going to have train wreck after train wreck until you can discipline yourself in the fear of the Lord and let him govern your life and be a wise decision maker. I want to have a blessed life.

I do, too.

I don't want to have train wreck after train wreck.

I've made a lot of decisions I wish I could have back. Regrettably. I don't say regrettably as though I live a life full of regret. Not saying that. There's just some big ones along the way that I fluffed. And you Know when you see the damage it causes man, you wish you had a do over and you don't. And you don't like God.

But we really do.

God restores.

Yes, we do have a do over.

He brings back to you your losses. But you having to go through that time of loss is painful.

Always say, if you're not dead, you're not done.

But even in the bad decisions that I've made, I think you would attest to the fact I've always tried to live life with a sense of a plan. I don't think there's ever been a part of my life from the day I met you. You want to be in ministry with me? We're going to start a church. From the time I met you, I had something that I was looking at. Why did I go to Bible school? I'm trying to get there.

It's true.

I will say, why did we raise money? I'm trying to get there.

We're talking about favorable outcomes, we're talking about God outcomes and we're saying there's different steps you can go through. But the basis of having a God outcome is to have to be based in wisdom to make wise decisions.

And the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Yeah.

So you make a decision in the fear of the Lord.

In the fear of the Lord, but also a lot of counsel. What is scripture comes through a multitude of counselors. Sometimes you'll get to the place where you just don't know what decision to make. And wisdom can come through other people's voice. You cannot be the kind of person who you just gonna make every decision and you think you've got it and you've got the answer and you don't listen to wise counsel, you're gonna mess up and you're gonna make some bad decisions.

Well, we do know that the beginning of the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And to make wise decisions means somehow you do it in the fear of God. Fear of God means you care about what God cares about and you want to happen what God wants to happen and you make your decisions accordingly. So that is the ultimate thing that we're trying to achieve. I think we've done our lesson on decision making today.

Yeah. Because every day you're going to have a decision. You're going to have decisions all the time. And I think everybody listening wants to make the right ones. Nobody wants to make bad decisions.

If you're a leader, when you walk in the room, they're expecting you to make a Good decision.

Yeah, well, it's been great. We're studying about wisdom. Just FYI, in Inner Circle this entire year. You say, what is Inner Circle? It's a group of people all over the world. Actually, it's about 32 states and three countries represented so far in the Inner circle. Go to hopesinnercircle.com you can join today and you get your first month free. You get a book for free. And we meet twice a month and it has been so powerful. So I would love to have you come on this wisdom journey with us

this year and the next conference that we're putting on. This will be on the west coast. LXP is on the east is May 7th through the 9th. We want you to be at transfer. Last year was. I don't even have words to put on it. And we believe God is going to outdo himself this year. May 7th through 9th. Last time my checks go there, my website go to church website, whichever, and go ahead and get registered for that. And we'll love to see you there. And until next time, it's Ron and

Hope Unfiltered, real, raw and relevant.

Blessings.