I Am Waiting For It To Decide For Me

Karim has a plan and he has never once said it out loud, and if you asked him he would deny it, and it is the plan he is running.

The plan is: wait.

Not wait and see. Not wait for money. Wait for the car to go beyond the point where anybody would repair it, so that the decision gets taken out of his hands entirely and made by a machine on a road somewhere.

He would not describe it that way. If you asked him what he was doing about the car he would say he is keeping an eye on it. But watch what he actually does.

He does not price alternatives. He looked once in March, briefly, and closed the page.

He does not ask the shop what it is likely to need next, which is a question they would answer in ninety seconds and which would change everything.

And when something goes wrong he fixes it, always, immediately, without hesitating, which sounds like the opposite of waiting and is in fact the same plan, because fixing it keeps it alive to the next thing without ever requiring him to choose.

Nine months of that.

Now, here is what makes this worth a message rather than a shrug.

The plan works. It genuinely does deliver a decision, eventually, and it removes all responsibility for it, and Karim will never have to defend the outcome to anybody, including himself, because he did not choose it.

And the price of that is the date and the place.

Because a decision made by a breakdown is made on a Tuesday morning on a road, at whatever the worst possible moment happens to be, with no alternative arranged and nothing put aside and a day already ruined.

That is what he is buying with the waiting. Not safety. Just the removal of his own name from the decision.

His brother in law said in July, "What's the plan with the car?"

And Karim said, "We'll see how it goes."

And his brother in law said, "Right," and that was the end of it, and Karim felt the answer land as thin even as he said it.

A decision made by a breakdown is still a decision

Let me put down what I am not doing, so nothing has to brace.

I am not going to tell you to change the car. It may well be right to keep it, and I have no numbers and no view.

And I am not going to guess at what it is likely to need next. That is a question for somebody qualified with it in front of them, and it is a good question and it costs nothing to ask.

What I want to look at is the plan, and then at what God actually offers as an alternative.

You are not being left to work this out on your own, and Scripture has God offering to teach a person the way rather than to spare them the choosing. Psalm 25 says the meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way, which is instruction offered to somebody still standing at the decision, and the Spirit of God is what makes that guidance available before a thing decides itself.

Here is the verse, and it is a promise about method rather than about outcome.

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.Psalm 32:8

Three verbs. Instruct. Teach. Guide.

Every one of those presumes somebody who is going to be making choices. You do not instruct a passenger. You do not teach a person who is going to be carried. Guiding is a thing done to somebody who is moving under their own power and steering.

And then look at the next verse, which is almost never quoted with it, and which is startling.

Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle.

That is the alternative He names. Not disobedience. Not rebellion. A creature that has to be steered by force because it will not use the understanding it has.

A bit and bridle is what you use on an animal that has to be turned by something happening to its mouth.

You are not being asked to be steered by an event, and Scripture offers instruction and guidance to somebody who is going to choose. It is written I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go and I will guide thee with mine eye, which presumes a person under their own steering, and His Spirit is the one who makes that offer real about an ordinary decision in an ordinary month.

You have been arranging to be turned by a bit rather than guided by an eye, and the passage names that alternative out loud. Psalm 32 sets the horse and the mule against the instructed man on exactly this point, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that a description rather than an insult.

Cost the breakdown, since that is the plan

Here is the practical thing, and it is not asking for a decision.

If the plan is to let the car decide, then cost the plan. That is all. Just find out what it is going to cost, the way anybody would cost any other plan.

Write down what a breakdown actually does to a week.

The tow. The day of work, or two. Whatever the arrangement is for getting to work in the meantime and what that costs. The lost shift if there is one. Whoever has to be asked for a lift and what that does to them. Whether anything else in that week has to move.

And the thing that will be at the bottom of that list, and that nobody writes down until they are made to: buying a car in a hurry, from a standing start, with no time to look, because the alternative is not getting to work on Monday.

That last one is the expensive one and it is the whole reason this is worth doing.

You have a plan that has never been costed, and no verse anywhere asks a person to walk into something without knowing what it takes. Psalm 32 offers instruction in the way a person shall go rather than a surprise at the end of it, and the Spirit of God is what makes an honest costing an act of receiving that instruction.

And I want to say the tender half, because I do not think this is laziness and I do not think it is fear of money.

I think it is that a decision has a name on it. If Karim chooses to keep the car and it strands him, that was his call. If he chooses to change it and money gets tight, that was his call too.

And a breakdown has nobody's name on it. It is simply a thing that happened, and there is a real relief in that, and I understand it entirely.

But look at what he gives up for it. He gives up the timing, the place, the price, and the chance to have anything ready. That is a great deal to pay to keep a name off a decision.

You were never going to be blamed for choosing, and Scripture puts the guiding eye on a person precisely so that they can choose rather than be turned. It is written that He will guide thee with mine eye, which is the language of somebody watching over a person's own steering, and His Spirit is what makes a chosen decision safer than an inflicted one.