Let’s Talk: Decision-Making

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Melissa Kruger: Hello and welcome back to Let’s Talk, a podcast from The Gospel Coalition Podcast Network where we seek to apply biblical wisdom to everyday life. My name is Melissa Kruger, and I’m here with my friends Jasmine Holmes and Jackie Hill Perry.

Melissa Kruger: We hope that you’ve enjoyed listening in. We’ve enjoyed getting to have these conversations together. And today, I’m very interested in this one because I think it’s one of the hardest things to do sometimes. Today, we’re going to talk about decision making.

Melissa Kruger: And I know that for me, this has been one of the hardest things to do at different points of my life. Because the reality is there’s a lot of things we know just up front to do or not to do, meaning scripture tells us. But as we all know, it doesn’t tell us what job to take. It doesn’t tell us who to marry. It doesn’t tell us where to live or how to go about our lives in some very specific ways, often.

Melissa Kruger: And I know when I was in college, I got engaged my junior year of college to a guy I’d been dating. And during that time, I started to feel all of these doubts about getting married and marrying him. And fall of my senior year, we met with the pastor, and he told me I had two weeks to make a decision whether-

Jackie Hill Perry: Two?

Melissa Kruger: Two.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay.

Melissa Kruger: He said y’all have been dating long enough. And I remember what he said. He said, “You need to cut it with the sharp end of the ax.”

Jackie Hill Perry: All right.

Melissa Kruger: And I was sitting there, and I left the meeting crying because I realized I had two weeks to make a decision about whether I should marry this person or not. And the two weeks passed, and I ended up giving him the ring back. And it was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. Have you all had situations where you’ve had these difficult decisions?

Jackie Hill Perry: Yes.

Jasmine Holmes: Not that difficult.

Jackie Hill Perry: Well, not that.

Jasmine Holmes: That sounds hard.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: It was terrible.

Jasmine Holmes: Oh my goodness.

Jackie Hill Perry: Especially, you only had two weeks. At least give me six.

Melissa Kruger: I know.

Jackie Hill Perry: Eight.

Melissa Kruger: I know. It was rough.

Jasmine Holmes: That sounds like you’re actually pretty decisive though. I mean, because I wouldn’t have been able to decide that.

Melissa Kruger: Well, one thing I did, and we can talk about this some more. I was going away with five of my girlfriends for a weekend. And we went around in the mini van, and I don’t know why we had a mini van because we were in college. But we were in a mini van, and I asked each of them if you were me, what decision would you make? They all knew how I was feeling. I just had all this doubt. How do you decide who you want to spend the rest of your life with?

Melissa Kruger: And I was 21. And it just felt like this is a really big decision. I don’t know how to do it. I asked all them. And four of them said I wouldn’t do it, not because he wasn’t a good guy, but because of how I was feeling. And one of them said, I think you should marry him. You gave your word.

Jackie Hill Perry: Let your yeas be yeas and your nays be nays.

Jasmine Holmes: For the rest of your life.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Yeah. It was a really tough thing to do. And I loved him. He was my best friend, and I gave it back to him. And I just said, “I can’t do this now.” And that was-

Jackie Hill Perry: Well, I think you employed a really important part of decision making, which is inviting other people into your decision making. I’ve always tried to remember where somewhere in the Bible it says, “In the multitude of counselors, there is safety.” And I really do believe that. I need more minds. I need more eyes, people with different insights and even connections with God that I may or may not have to be able to speak into my decisions.

Jackie Hill Perry: I don’t know if you got godly friends, especially wise godly friends, they just come with some type of insight.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. For sure.

Jackie Hill Perry: Where it’s like I never considered that angle, which therefore, helps your decision.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. I always tell my dad. I’m like, “Will you pray about this? God likes you a lot. You’re a man of God. I feel like he’ll give you the answer. Let me know what he says.”

Jasmine Holmes: You got it. And I pray about it too. But there’s something about the wisdom of other godly people around you to help you see blind spots that you’re missing or even confirm what you know. You know but you don’t want to know to confirm that. It’s really helpful.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Are you all the type of people who when you hear people say things, like if they say, “You shouldn’t marry him.” Then you want to go marry him? You know how some people are? It’s like-

Jackie Hill Perry: It depends on the person.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, I’m a person who wants to do what everybody else thinks I should do. It’s if you all think I shouldn’t marry him, then I won’t.

Jackie Hill Perry: No. I’m more so if you are a person I respect, I’m taking heed to that. Why would you say that? Is there something I’m missing? Did you pray and get some type of prompting of the spirit?

Jasmine Holmes: Let’s talk more deeply about why you think that I don’t need to do that.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. But if you’re somebody that just kind of makes frivolous, wise, impulsive decisions in your life, you probably just hating. That’s why you said it.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’m kidding. I’m not kidding. But I’m kidding. But I’m not.

Jasmine Holmes: JK but seriously.

Melissa Kruger: Those are the people I don’t really even ask. If I take the time to ask you, it normally means I really respect the advice that you would give. And I know it would be prayerful and biblically based and all of those.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think there are times though where even people you respect offer council that is wise, but it’s just not what God is actually saying to you. And I think you have to walk by faith.

Jackie Hill Perry: For example, I lived in LA when I was 19 till around 21. And it was after our church fractured, and I had got hired at this job. But at the same time I got hired at that job, I got hired for Amtrak, which was about to pay me $17.50 an hour, which is a lot when you’re 21.

Jackie Hill Perry: And I don’t even know what it was. I went to this customer service job thing. And it was my first day. And I promise you, I’m sitting at the computer, and I literally feel this strong idea pop in my mind. You need to move back home to St. Louis. You need to move back home to St. Louis. I was like, “Okay. Never considered that.” But it was just such a random, strong, clear thought, that I was like, I think this might be the Spirit. And I prayed, and I went home, and I lived with my discipler. And I said, “I think God might want me to move back to St. Louis. And she said, “Jack, that doesn’t make sense.” She said, “You just got hired at a good job making $17.50 an hour. What you need to do is you need to work this job, stack your money, and then you move back when you actually have some.”

Jackie Hill Perry: That is wise council. But I felt like listening to her would actually be disobedience. And I think there comes a time where you just have to follow the Spirit and what he’s telling you to do. And I eventually ended up getting married because I moved.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. Man, that’s so true. Yeah, that reminds me of us moving from Minneapolis to Jackson because we moved when my son was six weeks old. And everybody around us was like, “Why are you guys moving right now? Are you crazy?” But it’s what we needed for our marriage. And nobody was inside of my marriage like I was inside my marriage. And even though the people around me were wise and offering wise council, like why don’t you wait another year and save up some money before you move back. Phillip didn’t have a job yet. We didn’t have a place to live. It just was we had a much better set up in Minneapolis than we had going back home.

Jasmine Holmes: Our paycheck got cut in half moving back home. But it’s what the Lord wanted of us, and I had no doubt in that moment, not because he spoke audibly to us, but just because we just knew. We felt that tug, and we looked in the word, and we talked to each other. And we knew it was the right thing to do.

Jackie Hill Perry: That scares a lot of people, especially in the reform tradition, the felt a tug, got a strong idea, unction, impulse. It feels subjective. Is there a concrete way to discern that what I’m hearing or not audibly but what I’m sensing, how do we discern practically, even from the scriptures, that this is God and not just my feelings?

Jasmine Holmes: Well, I think the biggest thing is to make sure that what you’re feeling in the impulse and the tugging is not countered to the scripture. That would be like my … I don’t have anything else to say. I’m still thinking through it. But that’s the first thing that comes to mind is first of all, if it’s countered to the scripture in any way, shape, form, or fashion, that’s not God.

Melissa Kruger: God is not telling you to gossip.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, that’s probably a different voice.

Jackie Hill Perry: I think the Lord told me to get a divorce.

Jasmine Holmes: Right. Right. It’s like well, okay, let’s talk more about it. But yeah, that’d be an interesting conversation. Beyond that, beyond the things that are-

Melissa Kruger: Clearly.

Jasmine Holmes: Clearly-

Melissa Kruger: Out

Jasmine Holmes: Out. How do you clearly know when God is telling you to do something that’s in?

Melissa Kruger: When I was going through the decision making about who to marry, there was one passage. It was in John 10 that really helped me with this. And it was just this promise that the sheep know the shepherd’s voice, and that a stranger, they won’t follow. But that he will lead them out. And I was doing everything I knew to do in that decision making. I was asking wise council. I was praying. I was reading my bible. I was doing everything I could to make the right decision. And that promise that I would not follow the stranger’s voice really helped me to say I’m taking hold of all the means you’ve given me to hear your voice, and I can trust that you will lead me and that I can throw my whole life on you, that you will not abandon the one who seeks you.

Melissa Kruger: And I think as we’re making these decisions and we’re bringing in all those things, and sometimes, we do make decisions that are different than what our friends think we should make. But what I’ve found, a lot of times friends want us to make the easiest choice. We’re really uncomfortable with-

Jackie Hill Perry: The convenient one.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. When someone says I might be called to the mission field or I might be called to adopt a baby-

Jackie Hill Perry: Why would you do that? You sure?

Melissa Kruger: When you already have five babies. And you adopt two more or whatever. I mean, we’re really uncomfortable with hard choices. But Christ made a hard choice. I mean, he looked at all of us and for the joy set before him, endured the cross. And I think sometimes we also have to, as friends, have to be willing to say it’s okay to make the hard choice.

Jackie Hill Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jasmine Holmes: Which is hard. I even, when my friends are like, “Where do you want to eat?” I’m like, “I don’t want to say because what if y’all go, and y’all don’t like it?” I feel like we do that a lot with decisions. What do you think we should do? Well, I’m going to say the safest thing, so that if you do it, it doesn’t reflect back on me. Jasmine, you told me to do that.

Jasmine Holmes: But it’s not like that. It’s I’m looking at all the information that you’re looking at, and I’m giving you my best possible thoughts. And if the spirit leads you differently, it’s not a reflection on me. We’re all trying to figure out the best way to make this decision.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, I’ve tried to be really intentional when my friends ask me for advice or even my husband or whoever to caution them in saying this is what I think, and this is an opinion, but you still really do need to go to the Lord. Because what I’m saying might be totally off and different from what God is leading you. And I say that just because of all of the advice I’ve gotten that was told to me in such a way as if it was God’s word. You know?

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: You got a friend like you should, you have to, you must. And it’s like, dang, you’re giving me imperatives. If I don’t-

Jasmine Holmes: Only Paul.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, like if I don’t obey you, I’m not obeying the scripture some kind of way. And I just don’t want to be that kind of friend.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. And some friends, I think this is a really tough thing, especially in these gray areas. Even in motherhood, all of us are moms, and we all make different choices about how we raise our kids. And those different choices sometimes can feel like judgements on our choices. How do we live as women and make our decisions? And sometimes you might be called to do one kind of schooling. You might be called to do another type of schooling or you may be called to one career. You may be called to the mission field. Whatever it might be. We tend, unfortunately, to sometimes say, “Well, my choice was the better choice.”

Melissa Kruger: We almost feel like we get entrenched, and we have to prove why going to the mission field in Europe is better than going to the mission field in Africa or whatever. We feel like we have to make ours the best. Or living in the inner city versus living in the suburbs. Whatever it might be. Sometimes our decisions feel like they’re either judgements or other people’s decisions.

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s not just a competition, a decision competition.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: How can we live free of that?

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. I think when we do that, we’re relying more on our decisions to make us holy than the Spirit to make us holy. Because God is going to use Jackie’s career to sanctify her. God is going to use my career or my lack thereof to sanctify me. Do you know what I’m saying? But instead of saying that God is intimately at work in every single person’s life using the means in their life to bring about his good work, I think we rely on those means more than on him. And it makes us kind of like, well, if you’re doing something different, then that means that either you’re judging me, and I’m not as good at whatever as you or you’re wrong. Instead of saying, “Wow, that’s interesting that that’s where God led you, and that’s interesting that those are the contours of your life. And that’s where God’s working in your life. This is how he’s working in mine.”

Jasmine Holmes: And I think a lot of the times, we just don’t have that confidence.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. Our decisions have to be unique because we are. We are really complicated with a myriad of circumstances that we have to make decisions because of. And I think to judge somebody else’s decision is silly and weird, but I get it. We like to boost our egos based on the smallest things rather than praising and rejoicing and being like, that’s dope that you put your children in private school. Or that’s tight that you have all the time and energy and the smarts to be able to pour into your children with homeschool. That’s cool that you stayed in corporate America.

Jackie Hill Perry: Rejoicing with those who rejoice, I think we would have a lot more peace.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, there’d be a lot more freedom.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: A lot.

Melissa Kruger: Especially, it’s really sad, to me, what happens in ministry. That we almost judge what you’re doing. That’s okay. But this is significant or whatever it might be. And that, I think, rather than just like you all were saying, celebrating the decisions of others, even when they’re not like ours. I mean, and I think that’s sometimes the toughest type of thing to do.

Jackie Hill Perry: And maybe, sometimes another person’s decision makes you feel insecure about your own. Maybe that’s why it becomes a competition because you feel like, well, did I make the wrong decision? Because they did x, y, and z and got a different result than me. Why am I not getting the salary increase or the good marriage. You get what I’m saying? Maybe that’s a factor that we have to dig into.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. I think people are afraid of freedom, too. Freedom is scary. It’s much easier to live a life with everything just written down exactly how you’re supposed to do it every day of your life. It’s much harder to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you down whatever path he deems fit. I do think that the more that I grow in Christianity, the more that I grow as a woman, being able to see gray areas of decision making and not be intimidated by them has been a huge mark of spiritual maturity being brought about in me. But it’s taken work, and it’s still taking work. Even just deciding where my son is going to go to school in the fall, I was just a basket case for weeks. And everybody was like, “What is wrong?”

Jasmine Holmes: It’s okay. You don’t have to know exactly what place he’s going to graduate from right now. He’s not even four yet.

Jasmine Holmes: And then if I do this, this is going to be a theater school for this. And I was homeschooled, but I’m not homeschooling. And then it was like, what’s the matter with me? Am in to willing to do … And I wasn’t being confident in the season that God had put me in. I was too busy looking around at everybody else and being paralyzed by freedom. I was like, is there a way that I can make the decision easier by saying if there’s only one righteous way to teach my child? Because that would make this really easy because then it’s what I should do. And I don’t even have to pray about that. That’s just what I should do.

Jasmine Holmes: But no, I had to pray and think and wrestle and struggle and get some judgment and get some bad advice and get some good advice. And through that, my reliance on the Lord grew tremendously.

Melissa Kruger: And that’s often what we don’t want to do. We don’t want to have to sit in prayer and being in the Word and being still and listening to God. It’s very uncomfortable.

Jackie Hill Perry: Mystery is uncomfortable.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Extremely.

Jackie Hill Perry: We want all the answers.

Jasmine Holmes: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Okay. Someone listening today has a big decision to make. If you had to give a process for how you go through making a godly decision, just in general, what would you encourage that person to be doing who’s listening and says, “I have this huge decision to make. It might change the rest of my life.” It’s how every decision feels in the moment sometimes.

Jasmine Holmes: It absolutely does.

Melissa Kruger: What things do I have to include in that process of decision making?

Jackie Hill Perry: I think, obviously, prayer. Taking it to the Lord in prayer because he’ll guide your feet, guide your footsteps. I think with prayer, I’ve always asked God … If I don’t feel or sense or hear any clear, decisive thing, I’m going to just make a move. And Lord, if this is the wrong move, warn me. Use the church. Use something. And I think he’s a good father to the point that any time I’ve submitted my questions to him, he’ll send some warnings some kind of way. I think also, flushing out if I say yes to this, does it help me love God and people more or less? I think that’s a really good framework because there are some decisions that become so obvious for us to say no to because they’ll limit how fruitful we can be. I think fruitfulness is a good sign that maybe this is the direction you should go.

Melissa Kruger: That’s good.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, and I think, for me, whenever I’m making decisions, it’s helpful to remember that God is sovereign, which doesn’t mean that I just get to sit and fold my hands and wait for him to move me where I’m supposed to go, but it does mean that if I take a step in the “wrong direction,” he has been so good to allow me to change course so many times where I thought I was supposed to do x, got a third of the way into x, and was like, you know what? I need to reverse. And God has allowed me a way out or given grace for the way forward until I can switch gears, if that makes sense.

Jasmine Holmes: Not feeling like every single decision is make or break, rest of your life, not going to be able to ever go back from this. There are things that are more serious than others, right? Deciding to marry Phillip-

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s very serious.

Jasmine Holmes: That was a pretty big make or break decision. Yeah. Thankfully, I made the right decision. But where my kid is going to go to school, I can change my mind.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, you can.

Jasmine Holmes: Moving into whatever neighborhood, I can change my mind. There are things that are not permanent. You can release some of that tension by not saying every single thing is so huge that God can’t change course.

Melissa Kruger: Absolutely.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. One verse that always comforts me, it’s Isaiah 58:11. And it says, “The Lord will guide you continually, and he will satisfy your desires in scorched places. And you will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters do not fail.”

Jackie Hill Perry: And she quoted that from memory guys.

Jasmine Holmes: Verbatim.

Jackie Hill Perry: I see you. Melissa Kruger.

Jasmine Holmes: Melissa Kruger, ladies and gentlemen.

Melissa Kruger: These are those cling to versus. But what I love about that verse is he will satisfy your desire in scorched places. And I think sometimes when we are seeking to make good decisions, our goal is to avoid the scorched place. If I make the right decision, if I find the right husband to marry, if I find just the right job, that means nothing, and it will be hard. And I’ve realized that’s not the reason why we seek the Lord in our decision making. We seek the Lord because he’s the one who has all the wisdom, but he may lead us to make really hard choices.

Melissa Kruger: Have you ever had times in your life where you feel like the Lord had you make a decision that it ended up being a really hard choice to live in?

Jasmine Holmes: Yes. Yes.

Melissa Kruger: Tell us about that.

Jasmine Holmes: Absolutely. No, when we moved back to Jackson, that was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done because I’ve already said in our hospitality episode, we lived on a dead end street in a town with 800 people. I had no car. I had a young baby. I had postpartum depression. I was completely isolated for the first eight months of us living in Jackson. And there were several times where I was like, did we make the right decision? But we did because first, my husband flourished. Then my son flourished. Then I got to flourish. But it took a long time. It was a sacrificial decision. And I don’t say that as a pat myself on the back, like I’m such a good mother and wife. I’m just going to sit over here and wither on the vine while they flourish.

Jasmine Holmes: But that is what God called me to do in that season. I have been rewarded for that season a hundred fold, a thousand fold. But it was rough. But it’s what God wanted me to do.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, I think a lot of times, for me, most of my decisions, I know that they’re good decisions, but they just have their share of trouble and trial. Even when it came to me serving and agreeing to be in leadership at the church that I lived in Chicago, it’s like, sure. But I know I’m signing up for a very difficult … Leading people is not easy. I think if you think leadership is this fun thing to do, then you don’t really know what leadership is.

Jackie Hill Perry: And to be in a position where I’m serving women that do and don’t listen, that criticize, that don’t want you to talk about womanhood all the time or if you do talk about womanhood to include this. They don’t want you to sing these types of worship songs. They want you to sing longer worship. It’s just that type of environment. I was like, I know this was the right decision, but it’s not a decision that I’m glad I made.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes.

Jackie Hill Perry: And I think I’ve had that where my yes still came with its own share of sanctification.

Jasmine Holmes: I mean, just like all of us are married. It’s like, yes, I am so glad that I married my husband. I love him to death. When I try to think about what if I had married … I can’t even. I wouldn’t even be who I am without him.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: But there were days early on where I was like, “Hmm. This is kind of hard. Am I sure?”

Melissa Kruger: And I think that’s the refreshing thing about marriage. Everyone will get to the point of this is why we had to make a promise.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: Because we would all leave at some point.

Jasmine Holmes: And that’s true for so many decisions.

Jackie Hill Perry: Melissa, you told us earlier that you broke a guy’s heart, gave him the ring back. What happened to him?

Melissa Kruger: Well, he is actually a professor of the New Testament and I’m currently married to him.

Jackie Hill Perry: All right. Please explain. You back slid.

Melissa Kruger: This is one of those things even that Jasmine was saying earlier. Sometimes we make a decision, but it’s not the final call on that decision. And thankfully, a year and half after I gave him the ring back, he gave it back to me.

Jackie Hill Perry: And he was still single.

Melissa Kruger: He was still single.

Jackie Hill Perry: Look at the Lord.

Jasmine Holmes: Bless God.

Jackie Hill Perry: He preserved him.

Melissa Kruger: I know. He did. And he still wanted to marry me.

Jackie Hill Perry: Wow.

Melissa Kruger: His very indecisive wife. And it really was such a testimony of God’s grace. I think what I saw in that more than anything was how the Lord pursues us even though we don’t want him. And he comes after us, like a bridegroom. And my husband came after me and didn’t let my no dissuade him. And he’s like, “I love you. And I still love you, even though you rejected me and gave me the ring back.” And he asked me a year and a half later, and we got married. And we’ve been married 22 years.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s a word.

Melissa Kruger: It was a good … Yes.

Jasmine Holmes: That’s like Jo and Laurie, but ending the right way. From Little Women.

Jackie Hill Perry: Who are those people?

Melissa Kruger: That’s true.

Jackie Hill Perry: Never seen it.

Melissa Kruger: That’s true.

Jackie Hill Perry: Never seen it.

Melissa Kruger: I wrote the other story for Little Women.

Jasmine Holmes: You did.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, I don’t know what’s happening.

Melissa Kruger: The other ending.

Jasmine Holmes: That made me so happy.

Melissa Kruger: You got to see the movie.

Jackie Hill Perry: I don’t want to.

Melissa Kruger: You got to see it.

Jasmine Holmes: It’s so good.

Jackie Hill Perry: It doesn’t seem interesting.

Jasmine Holmes: You wouldn’t like it.

Jackie Hill Perry: No.

Jasmine Holmes: You wouldn’t. No, I’m telling you don’t see it. But also see it.

Jasmine Holmes: It is.

Jackie Hill Perry: That right there let’s me know I shouldn’t go see it.

Jasmine Holmes: We’re like, we like Laurie.

Jackie Hill Perry: What do you think is the takeaway from that? Because I do think it’s interesting how you did make a decision that someone could say was a bad decision because that actually was your husband. But I think it was a good decision because it served its purpose, right? I guess, what would you … I don’t know. What would be the wisdom that you learned from that scenario that you could pass on?

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. It was interesting because it almost seems like bad decision propelled me into a year of heartache. I mean, I was so sad. And it was weird because I was the one who had broken up, so I wasn’t really allowed to be sad. Because you said no, so why are you sad? But a lot of it was I just wasn’t ready to marry him then. And I think that’s fine. Some decisions, it’s just not time today. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t the right person. And I think that’s always the mystery of the Lord’s will. I remember telling people I will know he’s supposed to be husband after we walk down the aisle, and we have been pronounced man and wife.

Jackie Hill Perry: Hello. That’s a word.

Jasmine Holmes: Seriously, that’s how you know that it’s the one.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Because I don’t know this mysterious … There are no birds that came down and flew over his head. They didn’t encircle him saying he’s the one. I think these decisions are hard. How do you discern who you are willing to go through all of life with? And for me, it was really getting to the place where the Lord said, “The person you’re going to go through all of life with is me.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Amen.

Melissa Kruger: That’s why you’re going to be okay.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s a mic drop.

Jasmine Holmes: How many times has Melissa made us run up and down the aisle with our flags?

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s a mic drop. I should throw this at you. If we was in a black [crosstalk 00:38:28] gospel church, I would have took my shoe off.

Jasmine Holmes: I would throw my shoe down, but I don’t have-

Jasmine Holmes: My.

Jackie Hill Perry: Thank you.

Melissa Kruger: Okay. We’re at our favorite part where we get to talk about our favorite things. And today, we’re doing a spiritual one. It is what is your favorite book of the bible or could be your favorite passage, could be your favorite verse if you want to go smaller. What’s your favorite place that you love to be in God’s word?

Jasmine Holmes: My favorite passage is first Corinthians 2 where it talks about us having the mind of God. That is my favorite. I go back to it over and over and over again. I am such a researcher, learner, want to know, want to discover, want to find out. I find so much security in that, and I love that passage because on the one hand, it gives me that security of I can learn, and I can know because of who God is. But on the other hand, it pulls me out of my concrete thinking because discerning the mind of God is so much more than any words or book could ever express. It just kind of speaks to where I am, and it also speaks to what I mean, and I love it so much.

Melissa Kruger: That’s good.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah, I think in recent years, just being in the kind of ministry that I’m in, a ministry that can be kind of messy and hard to discuss sexuality and things like that, I think the book of Acts has become a favorite. Just seeing how the Spirit empowered the early church to do very hard stuff in difficult times, but also just observing one, how the church itself, the communal body, how they helped each other be on mission. But also seeing the joy that they had to be n mission.

Jackie Hill Perry: And you got stories of Paul getting bit by snakes and Paul being converted and arguments between him and Peter. It’s just a real-

Melissa Kruger: It’s real.

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s an interesting book. And I just enjoy it. I wish we talked about it more.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. My favorite passage is Isaiah 55, and what I love about it is it starts with this invitation. Come. Come all you who are thirsty. Come to the water. It’s this wonderful invitation. It says, “Why spend your money on what isn’t bread and your labor on what doesn’t satisfy? Listen to me. And your soul will delight in the richest affair.” And it’s just the invitation to God is an invitation to life. And then it ends with, “You’ll go out in joy, and you’ll be lead forth in peace. And the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you. And the leaves of the field will clap their hand.” Or whatever.

Melissa Kruger: And it’s this wonderful picture of the word going out, and it’s going to accomplish whatever he desires for it and his purpose is. Should we come to the Lord in his word, as his people. And then we go out. And I was like, that’s the whole Christian life to me.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. I love that.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s a pretty verse.

Jasmine Holmes: That’s beautiful.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. It’s beautiful. It’s said so much better in that poetic way.

Jackie Hill Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melissa Kruger: Well, thanks for this conversation. I feel more ready to make decisions after talking with you.

Jackie Hill Perry: Black coffee or latte. What does the Spirit say?

Jasmine Holmes: That’s the problem in America. You got too many decisions in the yogurt aisle.

Jackie Hill Perry: It’s like the Cheesecake Factory menu. It’s impossible to decide in five minutes what you want from the menu with 3000 items. But any who.

Jasmine Holmes: Decision fatigue is a real thing.

Melissa Kruger: It is.

Jackie Hill Perry: Scientifically, yes. It is.

Melissa Kruger: It is. We can’t help you choose your entrée at Cheesecake Factory, but we hope that we have helped making decisions in regular life. Thanks for listening today to this episode of Let’s Talk. Next week, we’re going to be talking about finding a mentor and being mentored, so be sure to join us for that. You can subscribe to Let’s Talk through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you like to get your podcast. Check out our other shows from The Gospel Coalition Podcast Network at tgc.org/podcasts. The Gospel Coalition connects Christians to resources that apply the truth and beauty of the Gospel to all of life.