What Could Go Wrong?

What Could Go Wrong?

By Rick Warren

“A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences”(Proverbs 22:3 TLB).

It’s smart to expect the best but to prepare for the worst.

Solomon expressed this idea in the Bible: “A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences” (Proverbs 22:3 TLB). The wise person recognizes there’s going to be problems in any decision and prepares for them.

Even the Bible knows about Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong, it will. You can’t ignore problems, because they’re not going to ignore you! Problems are inevitable. They are a part of life. The wise person doesn’t deny their inevitability. A wise person prepares for them by asking, “What could go wrong? And what will happen if it does?”

There’s a difference between preparing for a problem and solving a problem. Never confuse the decision-making phase of faith with the problem-solving phase. They are two different things. If you have to solve all the problems before you make a decision, you’ll be paralyzed and unable to make any decision at all.

By the way, this means you don’t have to have all of your doubts about Christianity and Christ settled before you make the decision to follow him. If someone had told me this, I probably would have made my decision to follow Christ much, much sooner. I still don’t understand a lot that is in the Bible. For the rest of our lives, we’ll be working out all the problems and doubts that come with faith.

You don’t have to have all of your doubts resolved. You don’t have to have all of the problems figured out or solve them before you make a decision. But to be wise, you must make a decision in faith, knowing that problems will come, doing your best to plan for them, and trusting God to give you what you need to confront them.