I love the story about the old man who carves duck decoys. You may have heard it but it has a powerful message. It goes something like this: Walter walks into a new friend’s home for the first time. The home is small but neat and orderly. What got Walter’s attention were the duck carvings on the shelves. There weren’t many but Walter couldn’t keep his eyes off them. They were exquisite; carved in perfect detail.

A.J. Gordon is quoted as saying, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” While we may believe that, how often is prayer, our ‘go-to’ response to a situation? I confess that a lot of times I SAY, when I should PRAY. Let’s be real. Prayer takes time. You have to be ready to wait on the Lord, and who wants to do that? Especially when we can just take matters into our own hands. Let me put words to what I’m being taught, and what you may be being taught, too.

My oldest son and I were having a conversation the other night. I intended for the conversation to be more about letting him talk out his upcoming plans, you know… career and so forth. For me, things get more concrete in my mind when I discuss the things I’ve been keeping in my head. As often happens, with both of my kids actually, I was asked a question that I wasn’t expecting and I shot from the hip. -That’s actually most productive for me. Not with everyone, but with my closest friends and family, I think there is enough forgiveness and understanding available that we can give our first thoughts about a subject and then discuss it to a refined answer. His question couldn’t have been simpler. “What do you want to do?”