This is Maturity

Maturity is putting a process between opportunity and decision.

The life you have is the result of the decisions you've made. I think it’s safe to say that the dumbest decisions in my life were due to the lack of thought. As we grow older, we create check points in our decision making process. For example, when we buy a used car we have a process that typically looks like this:

Ask the year, make, and model
Check the milage and the title
Look for signs of engine failure or accidents
Without this basic process between the opportunity to buy a car, and the decision to pay for it, we could totally screw up. You see, it’s the process that saves us. Now in life, we have many decisions to make, but the ones that really count can drastically effect your life if we lack process.

Here are a few major decisions I have made in my life:

• To Get Married
• To Buy a Home
• To Start a Business
• To Partner with Someone in a Business
• To Leave the Institutionalized Church for Home Church

At the age of 24 I decided to create a 5 step method to filter my decisions. I figured it would serve me well to clarify my non-negotiables in order to protect myself from human error. My process looks like this:

Does this opportunity bring me closer to God?

• Will this opportunity serve my family well?
• Will this opportunity support my health?
• Will this opportunity cause more stress than it’s worth?

Is this opportunity a good stewardship of my time, talents, and treasure.
If I can not answer YES to all five of these questions, I don’t do it. Let me tell you, it has stopped me from buying a bad home, from partnering with the wrong person, and from starting stupid businesses.

I challenge you to create a process. If you already have one, please share it below.