I Need to Make a Decision

Life is full of decisions. Each day, an individual makes countless decisions both big and small. So, is there a right way to make decisions? How can a person always be sure to make the right decision? Jeff Cavins offers his insight into good decision making by pulling from his experience and his knowledge of both Scripture and the Church’s teachings.

Snippet from the Show
Wise decision-making involves aligning with God’s will: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

Principles vs. Preferences

Principles are moral and ethical actions & thoughts that honor God. Preference makes decisions based on desires, likes, and dislikes.

Scripture Quotations

• Psalm 37:4 “Delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
• Wisdom 7:27 “In every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God.”
• Psalm 32:8 “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.”
• 1 Corinthians 10:31 “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
• Micah 6:8 “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
• Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church Quotations

CCC 1768 “Strong feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons; they are simply the inexhaustible reservoir of images and affections in which the moral life is expressed. Passions are morally good when they contribute to a good action; evil in the opposite case. The upright will orders the movements of the senses it appropriates to the good and to beatitude; an evil will succumbs to disordered passions and exacerbates them. Emotions and feelings can be taken up into the virtues or perverted by the vices.”

CCC 1696 “The way of Christ “leads to life”; a contrary way “leads to destruction.” The Gospel parable of the two ways remains ever present in the catechesis of the Church; it shows the importance of moral decisions for our salvation: “There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death; but between the two, there is a great difference.”

CCC 2563 “The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place “to which I withdraw.” The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.”