How we respond to life's challenges is a process that starts at birth and doesn't end until we leave this earth. We will make mistakes and poor choices, and we will have to live with the consequences of our actions.

Consider the Franklin Reality Model: everything both begins and ends with "needs", and our thought-process of analysis and behavior works towards fulfilling those needs (whether perceived/self-assigned or real).

This person's need is safety. Their (long-term) beliefs may change to to a degree to accommodate this (short-term immediate) need. For example: the person may need to break a window or push someone aside to flee (or potentially much worse), each of which violate some other person's privacy, property, and person.

Is this acceptable to the fleeing individual? Perhaps, but it depends on their moral compass, their core belief system, and how their personal beliefs interact and are prioritized with other's. The danger then becomes "situational ethics", a potential slippery slope where beliefs, values, morals can ebb & flow. Ultimately, the issue at hand is reduced to this: does the person fulfill their own needs by their own methods, or do they rely on and embrace the process of God's provision? This is a process that each individual has to refine and hone their entire life, a series of course corrections towards a totally yielded life.

Direct needs bring about a quick, sometimes immediate, self-evaluation. "If I cut that person off in traffic, then I keep my spot but risk his road rage"; "if I flirt with someone that's not my spouse, I risk hurting them and their relationships, my own relationship, the relationships of those close to us, and my relationship with God and my core beliefs...but it could satisfy an immediate (perceived) need for emotional and/or physical companionship".

This type of logical analysis of playing out scenarios in one's head is natural and, I believe, healthy to undertake as it gives us an opportunity in that very moment to reevaluate our beliefs; then we have a decision to make , more aware of the consequences (good or bad).

This kind of in-the-moment analysis offers an opportunity to put an eternal perspective on a temporal situation.  Second Corinthians 4 bears this out; we can see that, though what we perceive to be our immediate needs might be in jeopardy, God is always faithful...it just may not look like what we assume it to be.  If we are open and available to the Holy Spirit's leading, we can see the bigger "God picture" and get a glimpse of how we, as individuals, fit into it.

These cathartic moments can frame and reinforce our core belief system as Christians, and bring us ever closer to a totally yielded, fully surrendered life of serving Jesus.

React or Respond...?

How do you handle on-the-spot decisions? Do you React (on instinct), or do you Respond (with thought)? Does it help you make better decisions?