Have you ever had a difficult decision to make?  You agonize over it.  You pray about it.  You don’t sleep well thinking about it.

And finally you make a decision.  If you’re at all like me, the relief you feel is tremendous, simply because the decision has been made.  What you decided isn’t as important as the fact that you decided and the choice is now gone.

But if you’re also like me, at some point – whether it is days, weeks, months, or even hours – you start to second-guess that decision.  Or worse, you start to regret it.

I spent many years in that cycle.  And I’ve concluded that second-guessing or regretting is a waste of my time.

Decision-making is hard.  And it’s imperfect.  I make the best decisions I can given the information that I have.

For me, prayer plays a large role in my decision-making.  If I don’t feel comfortable that God wants me to do something, I don’t do it.

So after a decision has been made, if I second-guess it, then it feels like I’m questioning whether or not I heard from God correctly.

Here’s an example – our move to Scottsburg.  When it became obvious that Goat Milk Stuff had outgrown our old farm and we were going to have to move, we started praying for a new property.  We located one in Scottsburg that seemed almost perfect to us.  We prayed about it and were convinced this was where God wanted us.  We put in an offer and then we went “to battle” with the city over being allowed to build there.

I have to tell you, it was incredibly stressful.  While many people wanted us in Scottsburg, there were also some people who were very vocal about the fact that they did not want us there.  I could understand their concern because they didn’t know us and change is always scary.  But there were many times during the ordeal that I wanted to quit and find another property because the process was too hard.

It was really easy to tell ourselves that we had misunderstood God and this wasn’t the place for us.

But that thinking was wrong.

Because the right decision doesn’t always lead to an easy path.

If you measure whether or not you made a good decision based on how easy your life is after the decision is made, you’re using the wrong criteria.

Sometimes the right decision takes us down a very difficult path.  But it is still the path we are supposed to take.  It’s the difficult paths that are often where we learn and grow the most.

So now, once I’ve made a decision, I never try not to second-guess it.  I move forward and embrace the decision.

How about you – do you have trouble second-guessing your decisions?