Should I stay or should I go?

Discernment is key for decision making, but we can never be 100% certain we're making the right call. At some point, we just have to make the decision and trust God with the outcome.

Hey friends!

Another heat wave is rolling through London, and I am not complaining. Although lately I do find myself longing for the beaches I grew up with, as if the heat and humidity is awakening a call to the familiar sea of my youth. Long summer days, sandy toes, sun kissed cheeks. The scent of the salty air beckoning me into the deep water, the magic of midday sandbars, perfect waves, swimming until my fingertips wrinkle and my lips taste of salt and sea.

Growing up my grandparents had a little shore house in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island (LBI), a beautiful 18-mile-long island off the coast of New Jersey. I spent summer after summer there with my siblings and cousins, crabbing in the bay, swimming in the sea, leaping off the lifeguard stands, selling painted shells and friendship bracelets on the corner of our street.

When I think of where I grew up, the answer is always LBI. I did most of my growing up there.

But now we’re all older and spread out all over. My parents moved down south to retire and built their own house near the sea. My siblings are scattered in different places. Our family has tried to hold onto the LBI house, but the ties seem to loosen each year. We’re one of the last little beach houses on the street as more and more are knocked down and rebuilt into four floor mansions with roof decks and pools — we would have never used a pool at the beach growing up, all we cared about as kids was avoiding stubbed toes as we ran along the hot asphalt, hopping from shaded sliver to shaded sliver, in order to reach the beach as quick as we could. But now the house repairs are stacking up and its age is showing more each year, and the walls seem to only hold distant memories as the visits become less and less.

It seems this is the last summer we’ll have with the LBI house as my parents and aunt and uncle have decided it’s time to sell. It’s quite sad really. Dan and I will make our way to NJ in August for one last week at the shore. We’ll do all our favorite things, eat at our favorite places, linger on the beach well into the evening, BBQ in the back garden, see some friends we’ve not seen for years, and then I’ll say goodbye to the home which held so much of my life.

It’s a big decision for my parents and a hard one. My mom grew up in that home too, spending every summer at the shore house. I imagine when she thinks of growing up, she thinks of LBI too.

How do we know when it’s time to let go? When we’re faced with decisions in this life, how can we be sure we’ll get it right? In this post, we’re going to dive a bit more into decision making and discernment.

So, let’s dig in together...

Should I stay or should I go?

When Dan and I were thinking about moving to Los Angeles, I wasn’t sure it was the right call. An east coast girl through and through, I had no desire really to live out west. But we were a year into our marriage, still living with my parents in NJ, and it was time to begin a new chapter together. Dan had always dreamed of living on the west coast, and we had been visiting LA quite a bit over the years finding ourselves drawn into the city by the beach.

At the time I wouldn’t have called myself a Christian, but I was privately experimenting with prayer after an encounter with God a few years prior. I wasn’t sure about the move, but it felt like a perfect opportunity to test the waters of prayer.

So, one afternoon, alone in my parent’s house, I prayed for a sign. If we’re meant to move to California, please give me a sign. Later that day, I pulled out of our street and drove into town. The thought of my prayer had almost slipped away when suddenly I noticed the car in front of me had a California license plate. In a split second I began to think of the sign I had asked for but laughed it off as absurd.

Okay, Jamie, one license plate is certainly not the Heavens opening up and God saying “GO, MY CHILD”.

I continued driving. Suddenly, the blinker of another car flashed as it pulled in front of me. Another California plate. I shook it off as a classic case of Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, of course I am seeing what I want to see. But, by the end of the day, I stopped fighting myself. I had seen about ten different cars with California plates in my tiny New Jersey town of Flemington. All within a few hours. All different cars.

I prayed another prayer which seemed like an impossible one to answer. I would need an apartment and job because I couldn’t move across the country without those in place. I knew it was a long shot and assumed the whole saga would end there, but within a few months, I had not one job offer but two and a sublet lined up which led to an apartment lease in the exact time frame I needed. It all fell perfectly into place.

Dan had some work to finish in NJ, so I went out to LA in August of 2018 on my own at first. After moving and settling into my sublet in Venice Beach, I stopped by a church, drawn by a quiet sense of gratitude for all the answered prayers. There, I had a powerful encounter with God’s love that sparked a journey into an Alpha course and ultimately set me on a path of discovering Jesus, a reality that would transform the entire trajectory of my life. Moving to California became the most life changing decision I had made. It changed everything.

When Dan and I began talking about leaving LA to move to London, it seemed completely impractical. Dan was homesick and longing for London, a city he spent most of his life in. He was over LA — the expense, the people, the traffic. But so much about LA was breathing life into me. I had found faith in LA, began to follow Jesus, I was awakened to my identity and walking in my calling. I was also on the precipice of promotion in a teaching career I truly loved, and I wasn’t sure leaving was the right call.

But I decided I would pray through the decision. I was about four years into my walk with Jesus, so I had a bit more practice with this whole discernment thing. This time I followed a discernment practice I had learned which included self-reflection, prayer, listening for the voice of God, and seeking wise counsel.

The more I walked through this discernment process, the more I began to sense God’s guiding hand in a move to London. I was receiving prophetic words about the move, visions and dreams, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this transition would be just as pivotal as our move to California.

In April 2023, Dan and I packed our bags and decided to take the leap. I wouldn’t say the transition was easy. In fact, it would take thirteen months before we finally settled in, before my visa came through, and London started to feel like home. But I was right, things would be awakened in me in this city. It was a monumental move, one that continues to reveal God’s hand in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

Two stories of big life decisions. Two stories of big moves. Two stories of doing my best to pray and discern ‘should I stay, or should I go?’ in an attempt to sync up with God’s will.

And this is what discernment is really, it’s discovering and doing the will of God (you can read more here). The work of discernment requires listening for God’s voice through prayer and distinguishing his voice from the many voices within and around us. It is layered and a process, but the more we practice hearing God’s voice, the more familiar it becomes, and the more we walk with God and seek his will, the more our decisions align with his plans for us.

But here’s the reality, we’ll never be 100% certain. The work of discernment is vital when we make decisions, but even with discernment in place, we need faith to step out of the boat and trust Jesus is with us.

In this life there’s a whole lot more choice than we think but even more grace than we can imagine.

In my faith journey, I find myself often worrying about getting things right when it comes to decision making. I want to make the right call. I want to make the right decision; the one God wants me to pick! But even with the practice of discernment, the reality is I won’t always know for certain what God’s will is and at some point, I need to just make the decision and trust him with the outcome.

Because here is the truth, if we get to a fork in the road and we go the wrong way, God will use it for his glory and redirect us when we seek him. If we fail, God will use it to shape our character and prepare us for the next right thing. Nothing is wasted. This truth, for me at least, has helped take the pressure off a bit.

And that’s not to say we shouldn’t use discernment, we absolutely should, but it is to say we can live fearlessly knowing God is in control. Yes, there are decisions to make, big and small, and there are consequences to those decisions, but we have a loving Father whose plan is to turn everything for our good. This doesn’t mean life will be easy or that we will be free from suffering, but it does mean that God is weaving a redemption story and there’s always a larger narrative he knits together. Our choices matter. Our decisions matter. But God’s sovereignty never changes.

Sometimes I think this is one of the most difficult concepts to understand: God’s sovereignty and our free will. In this world, we get to choose the life we live. Our choices have consequences, both good and bad. Running parallel to this is the truth of God’s sovereignty, meaning his plan unfolds and he has complete control over the world and everything in it. How can both exist at the same time? Your plans and choices are your own, meaning you’re responsible for them. However, the outcomes of those plans are ultimately directed by God, the results are in his hands. Both realities coexist.

Though this can be difficult for us to grasp in the limitedness of our humanity, it’s a truth God’s word affirms. As Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man plans his way in his heart, but the Lord directs his steps.” Intellectually, this tension can be hard to reconcile. And in my own wrestling with this, there have often been two false narratives in response, one is of apathy, it doesn’t matter what I do or choose because God is in control, and the other causes a slightly sneakier destruction, I can’t do anything unless I am absolutely certain God is telling me to.

I have swayed between these two thought patterns in my own life, and both have wreaked havoc on the journey of calling, causing me to either live recklessly or too cautiously, both destructive.

So how can we hold the tension between the truth that God is sovereign and the reality that we make our own decisions? We seek God in the whole of our life, living our best in alignment with him, genuinely wanting his will for our lives, and trusting him as we step out.

The late Tim Keller tells the story of planting Redeemer, the church he founded in NYC. In the initial phase of planting and discernment, people often asked him, “Are you certain God is calling you to plant this church?”

His response is so helpful. He says, “No. I think he did. I think it’s a good idea. I think God’s calling me, but I can’t be absolutely sure. I can be absolutely sure I must not lie it’s in the Bible. I can be absolutely sure I must not bow down to an idol it’s in the Bible. I am sure of a lot of things that are God’s will. But as far as I know I won’t be sure that I was called to plant a church until it happens then I’ll know. They say, ‘But don’t you have peace about it?’ No, it was too hard. It was too scary. No, I didn’t have peace about it. But I know this, guidance is as much something God does as something God gives; therefore, I knew… that if I failed to plant a church God was preparing me for something I couldn’t envision.”

Keller did the work of discernment the best he knew how, but he was very clear, even after his discernment process, he could never be 100% certain planting Redeemer was God’s will, but he could be 100% certain that God would use his decision to step out for his good.

You see, God has good plans for you, and you have plenty of choice in your life, both exist at the same time. God is sovereign and you have free will. Desiring his will for your life is the first step, seeking him above all else, but then you simply do your best to walk it out, listening for his voice, and trusting him that he has a plan to work things together for your good in both success and failure. Nothing is wasted.

I’m leaning into this quite a bit this season as I’m navigating decisions in the present that I long to align with God’s will. Like my family and when Dan and I will start trying for a baby again after the heartbreak of losing Poppy. My calling as I seek God’s guidance concerning work, writing and ministry. My time and capacity as I continue to run Boldly Rising, build community, and begin the early stages of planning a podcast.

I suppose in some ways I’ve written this post to remind myself that I can trust God in all these spaces. I can do the work of discernment the best I know how and then I can make decisions to move forward, trusting him with the outcome, knowing he has a plan to work it all together for my good. The same is true for you.

So, I move forward, knowing I won’t always get it right, but also knowing I have a God who walks with me, whose plans for me are good, and whose grace never runs out.

The Poetry Nook

Deciding

by William Stafford

One mine the Indians worked

had gold so good.

they left it there for God to keep.

At night sometimes

you think your way that far,

that deep, or almost.

You hold all things or not,

depending not on greed

but on whether they suit

what life begins to mean.

Like those workers,

you study what moves, what stays

you bow, and then, like them, you know

what’s God, what’s world, what’s gold.

There’s a Book on That

Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life by Henri Nouwen is an inspiring read, unsurprisingly, given that everything I’ve read by Nouwen has profoundly shaped my faith and perspective. This book was assembled by two of Nouwen’s former students, Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird, drawing from coursework, personal journals, and unpublished writings. It overflows with spiritual wisdom, inviting readers to pay close attention to the rhythms of everyday life as a way of discerning purpose and calling. With a strong emphasis on community and relationships, Nouwen challenges us to see discernment through the lens of daily living.

As always, here’s a taster:

“The purpose of discernment is to know God’s will, that is, to find, accept, affirm the unique way in which God’s love is manifest in our life. To know God’s will is to actively claim an intimate relationship with God, in the context of which we discover our deepest vocation and the desire to live that vocation to the fullest. It has nothing to do with passive submission to an external divine power that imposes itself on us. It has everything to do with active waiting on a God who waits for us.“

Just in case you missed these recent posts:

• In Good Company: We are called to build community - imperfect, messy, joyful, real community. We are called to be people of love.

• Reading Scripture: With over 5 billion copies sold, the Bible is consistently the best selling book of all time. What's so special about this ancient text? How can it possibly be relevant to me today?

• Humble Service in a Status-Driven World: In a culture that sees power and status as the highest goal, what would it look like to see greatness through the eyes of Jesus? Jesus teaches us that the path to fulfillment is one of humble service.

• Being a Witness to a World Seeking Truth: What does it mean to be a witness to the transformative power of Jesus? It's quite simple really, let your life speak.

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Thanks again for reading this month’s newsletter. Cheers to diving into the deep together!

With love,

Jamie