Doing the next right thing is good
advice (writes Freeman), but it didn’t sink in for me fully until I started
noticing it in the Gospels. So often, right after Jesus performed a miracle, he
gave a simple next thing to do.
To the leper he said to tell no
one, “But go and show yourself to the priest” (Luke 5:14).
To the paralytic, he said, “Get up,
pick up your stretcher and go home” (Luke 5:14).
To Jairus and his wife after
raising their daughter from the dead, when he had their full and complete
attention, and when chances were good he could get them to swear their lives away
for his sake, he did not perform a lecture about dedicating their lives to him
or about what grand plans he had for their girl now that she was alive.
Instead, he told them to give her something to eat (Luke 8:55). After raising
their daughter from the actual dead, the one thing Jesus told them in the face
of their rapt attention was to go make lunch. At first glance, that seems like
a waste of a captive audience.
Rather than a life plan , a clear
vision, or a five-year list of goals, the leper, the paralytic, and Jairus and
his wife were given clear instructions by Jesus what to do next-and only next. Perhaps he knew something about
our addiction to clarity.
It is estimated that adults make over 35,000 decisions every day.
Freeman writes that the purpose of this book is to help us to be able to clarify what the next right thing for us is. I found her reminder that often just clarifying the next right thing makes life more livable, and of course there always will be the next right thing to choose.
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