Several months ago two Jesuits and I published a book about an Ignatian approach to making decisions–What’s Your Decision? How to Make Choices with Confidence and Clarity. I was delighted to read a blog post yesterday by a woman who found it helpful. Michele Campbell’s post includes a fine five-point summary of the decision-making process:
1) God is pretty cool and s/he created us.
2) God has a desire (or will) for each of us as well as a plan for our ultimate happiness and the learning of cool stuff that will make us grow into something awesome.
3) When creating us, s/he put this desire way deep into our hearts so that we wouldn’t lose it.
4) That means that “God’s Will” for us isn’t something external and scary and difficult to follow.
5) But instead, following “God’s Will” is allowing the deepest and most joy-making desires in our hearts to emerge and following those instead.
Thanks, Jim for the link – I’m so grateful that you enjoyed my post. And thanks, Anna, for the comment!
Thank you Anna. I’m delighted that you liked the book. “Truly liberating”–that’s wonderful.
If I may, I will cross-post the comments about your book that I left on Michele’s blog — and that was indeed a neat post, thanks for drawing our attention to it. Here’s what I wrote about your book:
Agreed — this was a very helpful book, and actually helped me get over some ‘toxic God’ stuff I didn’t realize I was carrying, such as that God wants me to do what I’d hate to do, but something that would “build character.” (The ‘you need to suffer for your own good’ God.)
This was a truly liberating book for me.
— Anna