One of the tests of living as a masterpiece is the ability to make wise decisions. Decision making is a part of our lives every day, some more serious than others. Living life as a masterpiece means you will have a different approach in how you make decisions.

• It’s About The Future

It’s always important to remember that decisions are about the future; unfortunately many people make decisions based solely on their experiences of the past.

Consider the great company IBM, at its peak it had over 400,000 employees and was leading the way in computer technology. However when the ideal of the home computer came along in the 1980’s they remained committed to being a company that would focus primarily on main frames for businesses believing that the PC would not be a house hold item. Their decision was based on facts from the past rather than facts mixed with vision and faith for the future. As a result their reign in the computer industry was over by 1990.

•  Get The Facts But Act In Faith

Conventional wisdom says that a decision is based solely on facts. While getting as many of the facts as possible are important, they are not the most important part of making a decision when living life as God’s masterpiece: faith is.  To live life as the masterpiece God created you to be, faith must be primary on your Life Palette. Facts and faith are not exclusive from one another for making a wise decision, rather the marriage of these two makes for masterpiece decisions.

• Make Sure The Best Person Is Making The Decision

Don’t let the fact that you are responsible or in leadership force you to make every decision. Often a wise decision is made at the lowest level by the person on the front lines. For instance you may be in need of a new microwave for your home. You are the one who makes most of the purchases for your family. Before you make a quick decision consider who uses the microwave the most. If you realize you rarely use it but your kids use it daily, it may be that the best decision maker in this case is the kids.

We spend too much of our time focused on decisions that would be better made by others who are more qualified. Sometimes the wisest decision is that you are not the one making the decision, even when you are the authority.

• The Best Decisions Are Made Tomorrow

What? Procrastinate? You may be thinking “I thought you were never supposed to put off until tomorrow what you can do today”?  That’s a great saying and may apply to most of life, yet not necessarily wise decisions or masterpiece living. Let me illustrate from one of our former Presidents, President Harry Truman. When asked to make a decision he would quickly respond with, “how much time do I have”? He understood a very important part of making wise decisions was timing – timing is as important as the decision itself. There are some decisions that must be made immediately because of an emergency, say 30 seconds. A decision in this situation must be made solely on your character, intuition, judgment and your ability to quickly hear the Spirit of God dwelling in you.

When given more time you are given more options. You are then able to get wise counsel, get the facts, spend time in prayer and consider your options. If a decision does not need to be made for 30 days versus 30 seconds, many things may change during that time period. While others want an immediate decision, a person of wisdom knows and understands the potential changes that may occur and is willing to purposefully procrastinate.

Consider how you go about making decisions. Are you simply acting in conventional wisdom or are you purposefully making decisions knowing that you are a masterpiece and masterpiece living means making wise decisions?

Next Steps:

Today as you have the opportunity to make a decision:

1. Consider whether or not you are making the decision based on the past or the future and look to the future.
2. Get the facts but prayerfully decide based on faith.
3. Consider whether or not you are the one who needs to make the decision, if not then consider whom you should delegate it to?
4. Before you make your decision, ask how much time you have to make it. If there is time and circumstances may change, purposefully procrastinate.