The Next Right Thing

This post is not quite a sermon response in the same way that my post on Sept. 9 was a sermon response. But it does mention one thing that I thought was great from the sermon yesterday.

Our pastor mentioned that when people feel overwhelmed with the troubles of life and they ask him, "What should I do?" he often replies:

"The next right thing."

That's a great answer. The "next right" thing is not the perfect thing to do. Don't get bogged down in not doing anything because you are waiting for the perfect thing.  Just do the next right thing you have the opportunity to do.

I've thought about this in relation to all sorts of things this week. If I had that phrase in my mind during my two decades of consuming too many things, I think my life would be better off.

What if our financial markets and government had lived by that principle? We are moving very fast toward a deep deep recession and I even heard a few analysts throwing out the "depression" word today. How did we get here? Obviously not a lot of people lived day to day doing the "next right thing."

The world is confronted with so many challenges like poverty and human trafficking and climate change. How do we respond to these overwhelming problems? Well, I think two ways. We work very hard on the very complex solutions to these difficult issues. But we do that while always trying to pursue the next right thing.

Comments

[James Cain]

Dave,

Thanks for this thought. I'm embroiled in a difficult situation right now, and the thought of what to do next has been almost paralyzing at times.

Best,
Jamie