Is God Included in Your Next Big Decision?

The Word at the Table

I'm Neal Reyes, The Entrepreneurs' Pastor, and I'm glad you're back at the table. Two words this week, one for your faith and one for your leadership. Before you go any further, I want you to think about the biggest decision sitting in front of you right now. Because both of these words today were written for that moment. Let's get into it.

This Week's Word

The Opening: There Is a Decision in Front of You Right Now

I do not know what it is. But I know it is there.

Maybe you are looking at a new home, or trying to figure out what to do when your lease is up. Maybe things have not been right at work and you have been wondering whether to stay or go. Maybe someone put an offer on the table and you are sitting with it, turning it over, asking yourself the same questions you have been asking for weeks. Maybe it is a health decision, and you are trying to figure out if going through with a medical treatment is a betrayal of the faith you have been standing on. Maybe it is your marriage, a relationship, a move, a business decision that feels too big and too permanent to get wrong.

Whatever it is, I want you to know that you do not have to figure it out alone. And more than that, you were never meant to.

Part One: Ask First. Wait. Then Move.

One of the most important patterns I teach on, and one I have lived personally, is this: we do not move and then ask God for His advice. We ask Him first. We wait and listen for the answer. And then we move.

I know that is not always easy. I know there are moments where you feel like the clock is ticking and the decision cannot wait. But here is what I want you to hear. God did not put you in that situation. And He can absolutely get you out. But you have to invite Him in. You have to make the decision to include Him before you make any other decision.

There is a scripture I want to take you to today, and it is one of my very favorite in the entire Bible. It is Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV. It reads this way. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

Now I want you to hear it one more time, but this time from the Message Bible, because I think the way it renders this scripture is something special.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart. Don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do. Everywhere you go, He's the one who will keep you on track.

Read that slowly. Trust God from the bottom of your heart. Not from the surface. Not from the place where you are saying the right things but still trying to control the outcome. From the bottom. And do not try to figure out everything on your own. That phrase alone is worth sitting with, because so many of us spend enormous energy trying to solve things in our own strength when the answer has been available to us the whole time through prayer and the voice of God.

He will keep you on track. That is the promise. Not that the path will always be easy, but that He will keep you on track when you trust Him and acknowledge Him in every decision you make.

Faith Anchor #1: The decision you are facing right now is one God already sees the end of.

I want to bring you a story, because I think it illustrates this better than anything I could simply say. And that is the story of Joseph.

Joseph is one of the most significant figures in the entire Bible, and his story is one of the most layered examples of what it looks like when God has a destiny for someone and that person has to walk through the fire to get there.

Quick recap. Joseph's brothers were jealous of him. They conspired to kill him, changed their minds, threw him in a pit, and then sold him into slavery to passing traders. They took his coat, put the blood of an animal on it, and brought it to their father, letting him believe his son was dead. Think about the pain of that moment, both for Joseph and for the father who loved him.

Joseph goes into captivity. He starts to rise. He comes into favor. And then a false accusation lands him in prison. From the dream God gave him at the beginning, to the prison cell he found himself in, the distance between those two things did not look like the path to a promise. It looked like the opposite.

But here is what I want you to see. God did not take Joseph from the dream to the promotion overnight. There was a journey in between. And every single thing Joseph had to walk through built his character for the next thing. The pit prepared him for the service. The service prepared him for the prison. The prison prepared him for the palace. And by the time Pharaoh called him up to interpret the dream that no one else could, Joseph was ready. Not because the road had been easy, but because the road had been building him for an assignment that required everything he had been through.

Faith Anchor #2: Sometimes the hardship is not punishment. It is preparation.

This is something I want you to hold on to if you are in a difficult season right now. If you went back and assessed the decisions you made that led to where you are, maybe some of them were decisions you thought were correct at the time and they led to hardship anyway. Or maybe you felt like you were hearing from God and you followed His instruction, and now you are in a hard place wondering if you missed it.

I want to say this to you. Perhaps you did not miss it at all. Perhaps you are in the journey that is building your character for the assignment that is still ahead of you. Not every difficult season is a sign that you made the wrong choice. Sometimes it is a sign that God is making you ready for something your current version could not yet carry.

The question is not just what should I decide. The question is, have I included God in this decision? Have I asked Him? Have I waited for His voice? Have I given Him room to lead me rather than trying to figure it all out on my own first and then asking Him to bless the plan I already made?

Faith Anchor #3: Include God before you move, not after.

He is faithful to show up when you invite Him. That is not just a platitude. That is a pattern that is documented throughout the entirety of scripture and throughout the lives of people who have walked with God for a long time. When you seek Him, He is found. When you acknowledge Him, He directs the path. When you trust Him from the bottom of your heart and not just the surface, He will keep you on track.

Whatever decision is in front of you right now, this is the word for that moment. Do not move without Him. Ask first. Wait. Listen. And then move with confidence, because you did not make that decision alone.

Part Two: Your Calendar Is Lying to You

Let me bring you the second word today, and this one is for every leader and entrepreneur who has been running hard and wondering why, despite all the progress, something still feels off.

I want to talk to you about something I call balanced projects.

Most high performers have no shortage of professional projects. You are always building something, solving something, managing something, executing on something. And the drive that fuels that is real and it is necessary. But here is the question I want to put in front of you today. Outside of work, what are you building?

Because if the honest answer is nothing, I want to suggest to you that over time, that imbalance starts to show up in ways you may not immediately connect back to this. Things get stale. The work that used to energize you starts to feel like a grind. You accomplish things but the sense of meaning does not follow. You are winning at work but something important is going quiet on the inside.

The reason personal projects matter is not just about rest or recreation. It is because they keep you grounded to why you are doing all of this in the first place. When you are working on something at home, something for your family, something that builds or creates or improves something outside of work, those things feed something in you that work alone cannot reach. And when that part of you is fed, you come back to your professional world with something different in you. More fuel. More clarity. More of a reason to push.

Leadership Truth Bomb #1: Your calendar should reflect your priorities, not your stress.

Take an honest look at your calendar this week. Not what you intended to do, but what actually happened. What did you give your time to? Because your calendar does not lie. It is a document of what you actually valued with your hours. And if what is on it does not match what you say matters most to you, that gap is where the emptiness comes from. You might not be running low on success. You may just be running low on alignment.

Productivity is about prioritization. It is never about pressure. That is something I believe and something I have had to help other people understand when they were ready to walk away from something they actually loved because they had convinced themselves that the weight of it all had to be carried all at once.

I remember getting a call on a weekend from one of my employees, years ago. He was overwhelmed and seriously considering putting in his notice and quitting. So I asked him the two questions I ask every one of my people when they are at a crossroads. Did you pray about it? And do you feel at peace with your decision? He had not done either. So I walked him through some other questions. Did he still love the work? Yes. Was the atmosphere bad? No. Were the relationships with his team and his supervisor solid? Yes. So what was actually wrong?

He said, it is just that there is so much work to do.

And I told him, I know. Isn't that wonderful? That is why I am able to give you a job.

He paused on the phone. Then I explained that if he worked straight through for three and a half weeks with no breaks, no sleep, peak performance the entire time, at the end of it I would still have work for him to do. Because the work is not meant to all be done today. The mistake he was making was believing that it was.

Balance is not about doing everything every day. It is about doing the right thing at the right time. And when you learn how to pace yourself, when you learn to break the work into focused windows and stop treating everything on the list as urgent right now, life becomes simpler, more manageable, and a whole lot more sustainable.

Leadership Truth Bomb #2: Personal projects can fuel the purpose behind your professional ones.

The things you do outside of work are not a distraction from what matters. They are part of what keeps you connected to why it matters. A leader who only ever pours out without rehydrating runs the strong risk of having nothing left to pour. But a leader who tends to their personal life, their health, their family, their home, their creative interests, that leader brings something to work that cannot be manufactured. It has to be cultivated.

Design your week. Do not just survive it. That means learning how to take authority over your time and your schedule before something else fills it for you. Because something always will. If you do not claim your time for the things that matter, your distractions are going to claim it for you. And you will end up busy without being productive, and tired without being fulfilled.

Leadership Truth Bomb #3: If you don't schedule what's important to you, your distractions will keep you on a leash.

That is not a metaphor. That is exactly what happens. Your distractions do not take a day off. They are always competing for the same hours that your priorities need. And if you do not put what matters on the calendar first, what fills it instead will pull you wherever it wants to go. You will be reactive instead of intentional. Busy instead of purposeful. And at the end of the week, you will wonder where the time went.

Put the things that matter on the calendar. The personal project. The workout. The dinner with your family. The quiet time in the morning where you actually think. Protect those blocks like they are your most important meeting. Because they are.

Champion, you were not built to run on empty. You were built to lead from fullness. And that requires that you tend to all of the areas of your life, not just the ones that show up on the annual review or quarterly report.

Take This With You

Two things this week, one for each lane.

On the faith side, whatever decision is in front of you right now, do not move without God. Ask Him first. Give Him room to speak. Trust that He already sees the end of the thing you are standing at the beginning of. And if you are in a hard season right now and you wonder if you missed it, remember Joseph. The journey through is not always punishment. Sometimes it is the path that is building you for the assignment you were made for.

On the leadership side, look at your calendar. Be honest about whether it reflects your priorities or your stress. Build in the personal projects that ground you to why the professional ones matter. Design your week intentionally. And stop letting your distractions hold your schedule on a leash. You are too purposeful for that.

From the Table Last Week

On Champion's Walk, my faith show that teaches Real Help For Real Hope, I brought you Seeking God's Guidance Before Your Next Big Decision. I broke down why we ask God first and move second, walked through the story of Joseph and what it teaches us about hardship and preparation, and delivered three faith anchors on including God in the decisions that carry real weight in your life. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLG124-88zw&list=PLMPDSgKkGZNvHLzeBuhqHvZhuCSMEQEgV

On The Executive Perspective, my leadership and business show that delivers Real Help For Real Success, I brought you Work Life Balance: Why You're Crushing It at Work but Still Feel Empty. I broke down why balancing your professional and personal projects is not optional if you want to stay grounded and effective, walked through a real coaching moment with one of my employees who was ready to quit over overwhelm, and delivered three leadership truth bombs on prioritization, purpose, and designing your week instead of just surviving it. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKWO_gQA2I4&list=PLMPDSgKkGZNuJ-dNFVFCWc3lb7BmJ07mM

Until Next Time

You were never meant to carry the big decisions alone. God is not waiting to be informed of what you decided. He is waiting to be included in how you decide. That is a different posture, and it changes everything.

This Wednesday on Champion's Walk, I have something powerful coming for you. Stay close.

Then Saturday on The Executive Perspective, we keep building on the leadership and business principles that move the needle for high performers. You do not want to miss it.

I'll see you at the table next Tuesday.

Neal Reyes, The Entrepreneurs' Pastor