Gather The Key Facts, Then Decide
“In war, anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong, we shall soon find it out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money, and may ruin everything” (Ulysses S. Grant). In our spiritual war with Satan, he will often try to get us to be indecisive (Gen 3:1; Mt 4:1-6). In the Bible, indecision can be viewed as a form of double-mindedness (Jas 1:6, 8). Continued indecisiveness, when a decision has already been made or needs to be made, is condemned by Christ (Lk 9:62).
At the battle of Midway in WWII, Admiral Nagumo, who had a carrier strike force of four large carriers, became indecisive when he learned that the Americans might have one carrier in a fleet his reconnaissance aircraft had sighted. Instead of promptly attacking the Americans, he ended up rearming his planes that had returned from Midway. This made his carriers vulnerable to attack. The Americans waited until the planes were being rearmed before attacking and the result was the sinking of 3 Japanese carriers. It changed the course of the war in the Pacific.
Sometimes, indecision can be an indirect tactic to let a more informed person make a decision for us. In other cases, indecision can be a way of shirking responsibility or trying to get out of doing something (1 Ki 18:21). It can be a form of passive-aggressive behavior or a way of buying time so we can get more information or await circumstantial changes. For the most part, indecision can have a devastating effect on our lives and the lives of those who may be affected by our decisions. Since God can bring good out of even the well-intentioned mistakes of His faithful children (Rom 8:28), we must risk making decisions (Ps 37:23-24).
Comforting others is costly but worth it.