05/27/2025
If you want to grow spiritually, what do you do? If you want to move forward in life, marriage, or career, what steps should you take?
Someone once asked Dallas Willard the same questions, and his reply was uncanny in its simplicity: “Do the next right thing you know you ought to do” (Steps, 252). Too often, I get fixated on steps five or six and then become increasingly overwhelmed, failing to take the very next step, let alone the steps down the road. I fall into the trap of “paralysis analysis.” What if I take the wrong step? How will the next step play out in future steps? Is the next step a big step that can really make a difference?
Emily P. Freeman wrote an insightful book on decision-making titled The Next Right Thing. She noted that “doing the next right thing” began to sink in when she noticed a pattern in the Gospels. On a number of occasions, after Jesus did a miracle for someone, He gave them a simple next thing to do:
He healed a leper and said, “Go, show yourself to the priest” (Matthew 8:4).
He healed a paralytic and said, “Take up your mat and walk” (John 5:8).
He saved a woman caught in adultery from stoning and told her, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11).
After Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead, rather than speak to the stunned crowd of His power over death, he simply turned to those gathered and said, “Give her something to eat” (Mark 8:43).
I appreciate the fact that, rather than mapping out one’s entire life plan step by step, Jesus gives instructions on what to do next. Not the next big thing. Not the next dramatic thing. Not the next impressive thing. Not the next exhausting thing. Just the next right thing (Freeman, 14-15).
Following Jesus begins with the next right thing, and most often, that next step is something as small as “make your bed.” I read a book a few years back written by Admiral and Navy Seal William McRaven called, Make Your Bed. He advised that if we want to change the world, we should start off by making our bed. Doing big things starts with little things. And if we have had a miserable day, at least we can come home to a made bed.
According to a recent survey cited by Judy Dutton, “Bed-makers are more likely to like their jobs, own a home, exercise regularly, and feel well rested than their rumple-sheeted, non-bed-making peers” (Psychology Today, 08.16.2012).
Jesus said, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much” (Luke 16:10). I know what this means for me, and I think the same lesson applies to you as well. Rather than worrying about steps five and six, I need to focus on the right next step, even if it’s as simple as making my bed.
