The Next Right Thing

Have you ever been paralyzed by a decision—so weighed down by options and fear of doing the wrong thing that you end up doing nothing at all? In The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman invites you into a radically gentle, deeply practical approach to decision-making rooted in peace, presence, and spiritual formation. Freeman contends that living a life of wise decisions doesn’t come from mastering a five-step strategy but from cultivating inner stillness, paying attention to your soul, and trusting God enough to simply do the next right thing that presents itself.

This book isn’t a manual for productivity or a self-help guide on decision efficiency. Instead, it’s a soulful companion for those who feel weary, rushed, and uncertain. Building on her training in Christian spiritual formation and the success of her podcast of the same name, Freeman explores how unmade decisions hold power—how they follow us around like restless toddlers tugging our sleeves. The anxiety of wanting to get everything right, she argues, is another way of trying to maintain control. But what if the real invitation is not to figure it all out, but to let ourselves be guided step by step?

Doing the Next Right Thing

Freeman borrows the simple but revolutionary phrase “do the next right thing” from a variety of sources—the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, Theodore Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, and even biblical patterns seen in the Gospels. After performing miracles, Jesus often told people to take one small, concrete step—a leper to show himself to the priest, Jairus’s family to feed their resurrected girl. God rarely gives us a life plan; He gives us a single next invitation. “Do the next right thing” means not the next grand, glamorous thing but the next small, faithful thing right in front of you.

Freeman illustrates this through her own agonizing decision to return to graduate school. Torn between motherhood, career, and calling, she spirals through overthinking, seeking signs in sermons and even chocolate wrappers. Only when she stops striving for cosmic clarity and starts tuning in to God’s quiet steadiness does she recognize that the true work of decision-making is not control but communion. Each choice shapes not just our outcomes but our formation—our becoming.

A Soulful Approach to Decision-Making

Across twenty-four contemplative chapters, Freeman offers practices and stories designed to slow you down and train your inner ear for divine direction. Every chapter ends with two simple guides: a prayer and a practice. The prayers reorient your attention toward God’s presence (“O God, I am open”), while the practices translate spiritual insight into tangible motion—writing a list, embracing stillness, or having a soulful conversation. The aim isn’t to arrive at perfect answers but to recover spiritual union in the midst of uncertainty.

Her approach sits alongside other spiritual writers like Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard, and Ruth Haley Barton, who emphasize discernment as relational listening rather than analytical problem-solving. “The decision is rarely the point,” Freeman reminds us. “The point is becoming more fully yourself in the presence of God.”

Why This Matters

We live in an age of abundance—of choices, information, and noise. Adults make tens of thousands of decisions every day. Yet the modern glut of options leaves us more fractured and anxious than ever. Freeman’s invitation is countercultural in its simplicity: instead of chasing five-year plans or exhausting yourself collecting advice, clear a little space within your soul, listen for what rises, and move toward love.

This, she explains, is both a spiritual and a psychological practice. It heals our addiction to certainty, burns through our fear of failure, and awakens our desire to live courageously present. By learning to become soul minimalists, to name the stories we live by, and to expect surprise rather than script control, we become people who trust God’s process even in ambiguity.

Ultimately, The Next Right Thing is about reclaiming space—in your schedule, your mind, and your spirit—to notice what truly matters. When decisions overwhelm you, you don’t need a divine blueprint. You just need the courage to trust that God delights in you, walks beside you, and whispers one step at a time: do the next right thing in love.

Freeman introduces the concept of “soul minimalism,” the spiritual corollary to the rising popularity of physical minimalism. Drawing on Joshua Becker’s definition—owning nothing that owns you—she extends it to the mind and spirit. We hoard thoughts, anxieties, and opinions just as we collect clutter in our homes. The invitation is to declutter within, to make room for what she calls “the sacred space of silence.”

Clearing Soul Clutter

Our culture’s constant input—from phones, headlines, social media, and incessant notifications—keeps our souls noisy. Freeman references minimalism advocate Courtney Carver, who learned stillness after being diagnosed with MS. Carver had to simplify her outer life before she could hear her body’s needs. Freeman applies this insight to the inner life: you can’t hear God if you never turn down the volume of everything else.

To become a soul minimalist, begin by recognizing the flow of input and output. We constantly absorb emotions, expectations, and experiences but rarely release them. Silence acts as the soul’s colander, straining out what doesn’t serve life and allowing clarity to remain. Stillness, even for five minutes, creates space for courage and creativity. (Dallas Willard called this “the unhurried practice of being with Jesus.”)

Resisting Digital Distraction

Much of Freeman’s advice centers on our relationship with technology. She challenges readers to turn off notifications and reclaim their capacity to pay attention. Her defiance—“Phone, you are not allowed to boss me”—isn’t moralistic; it’s about freedom. She echoes Andy Crouch’s The Tech-Wise Family, which advocates an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year without screens. Silence, she insists, is not empty; it’s room for revelation.

Practicing the Presence of Peace

Becoming a soul minimalist takes practice. Notice the naturally silent places in your day—the first light of morning, an empty office, a short walk. Instead of filling these with chatter or self-rehearsed worry, rest there as in a sanctuary. “The world is run by worn-out people,” Freeman writes, and one of the kindest rebellions is to stop trying to keep up. When we declutter internally, decisions emerge not from anxiety but from love.

Soul minimalism doesn’t promise an ascetic escape. It simply means clearing enough space to let beauty and God’s voice come through—the spiritual equivalent of clearing off Grandma’s table so there’s finally room to sit and enjoy a meal again.

Freeman argues that indecision often hides something unnamed beneath it—a story we’re telling ourselves without realizing it. Quoting Ronald Rolheiser and Madeleine L’Engle, she explains that “we get into trouble whenever we do not name things properly.” Just as naming brings intimacy to people, naming our emotions and stories brings clarity to our choices.

Naming as Healing

Through examples like medical missionary Nancy Writebol surviving Ebola, Freeman illustrates how different narratives shape how we interpret suffering. A CNN reporter once said of Writebol’s story, “It’s not a narrative of trauma, it’s a narrative of joy.” That sentence, Freeman writes, changed how she saw her own struggles: same circumstance, different narrative. God invites us to name our stories truthfully, not to rush them into tidy resolutions.

Let the Story Be a Story

Like Writebol’s recovery, our spiritual lives are mid-story. Beginnings feel awkward, middles mundane, endings bittersweet. But naming these plot points—disappointment, hope, envy, relief—helps us notice what season we’re in without mislabeling it as the whole story. Sometimes the right step is simply to say, “This is grief,” or “This is waiting.”

Information, Not Explanation

Freeman shares an analogy from her massage therapist: when pain shows up on one side of the body, it’s “not bad—it’s just information.” Naming isn’t diagnosing; it’s noticing. Once we name our inner realities—fear, desire, fatigue—we can bring them to Jesus for interpretation. “A name is more like a song than a definition,” she writes. Often, just singing the song is enough.

Naming the narrative transforms decision-making from a mental puzzle into a spiritual conversation. What remains unnamed controls us; what is named can be transformed.

In one of the book’s most memorable lessons, Freeman shares how saying yes to a Compassion International trip to the Philippines came down to one powerful question: “Am I being pushed by fear or led by love?” She almost declined due to her fear of long flights and of getting sick abroad, until the trip leader gently advised her, “There may be many reasons to say no, but please don’t let fear be one of them.”

Exposing Fear’s Disguise

Fear rarely looks like fear—it masquerades as wisdom, logistics, or responsibility. Yet, as Freeman shows through her “Compassion trip” story, waiting for peace before acting often means never acting at all. It wasn’t until she said yes that peace came. Fear pushes; love leads. The difference lies in their energy—fear hurries, love steadies.

Practicing Love-Led Decision Making

When facing any major choice, Freeman recommends pausing to ask this single clarifying question. It frames discernment not as a guessing game about the future but as an alignment with God’s presence now. Many decisions become clearer when you name the motivation. As in Ignatian discernment or Jan Johnson’s When the Soul Listens, love’s companionship replaces anxiety with trust. “We can’t prevent storms,” Freeman writes, “but we can decide not to invent our own.”

By distinguishing between fear’s urgency and love’s invitation, you’ll begin to move toward choices that bring freedom, regardless of the outcome.

In Chapter 10, “Quit Something,” Freeman reclaims quitting as a holy discipline. She tells the story of leaving her career as a nationally certified sign language interpreter after years of effort, degrees, and exams. When her certification was revoked due to inactivity, she cried—but also felt release. “Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you’re supposed to do it forever.”

Letting Go as Spiritual Practice

Freeman references Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: doing less, but better. Her twist: letting go isn’t just efficiency—it’s trust. Quitting makes room for a wholehearted yes. Sometimes our next right thing is to stop doing things that once were right but no longer are. Seasons shift, but our pride resists that truth.

Listening Days and No Mentors

She introduces two practices for discernment: scheduling a “listening day” devoted entirely to silence and reflection, and finding a “No Mentor”—someone bold enough to remind you that saying no to good things can be grace, not failure. (Freeman’s sister, author Myquillyn Smith, fulfills that role.)

Quitting is not lazy; it’s mature stewardship. As David Benner writes, “Our calling is the way of being that is both best for us and best for the world.” If something no longer serves either, it’s time to release it.

By embracing endings as sacred, you open the door to freedom, creativity, and spiritual vitality—the place where your truest “yes” begins.

For readers consumed by anxiety about the future or regret about the past, Freeman grounds decision-making in the present moment. “Be still and know,” she reminds us, quoting Psalm 46:10. Her story of chasing the California sunrise but missing its beauty until she stopped driving becomes a metaphor for our restless striving. If you can’t stay in your current moment, you can’t discern the next right thing.

The Practice of Staying in Today

Freeman suggests a profoundly simple question: “Is this happening today?” If the answer is no, set it aside. Her exercise transforms looming “someday” worries into manageable “today” actions. By focusing only on the immediate step, you free your nervous system from overload and return to reality as it is—not as your imagination fears it may be.

Be Where You Are

In a related chapter, she shares her revelation that she had a job—something obvious to everyone but her. This simple awareness shifted her expectations and allowed her to accept the truth of her season. Whether you’re caring for children, managing a diagnosis, or shifting careers, honesty about your current state is the first act of wisdom. We cannot discern our next right thing if we refuse to name where we stand.

Together, these practices—staying in today and being where you are—train your soul to respond to reality, not fantasy. God meets you in the present tense, never in your imagined futures.

Busyness, Freeman argues, is one of the greatest enemies of discernment. Choosing presence requires intentionally choosing absence—from the noise, pressure, and endless chains of “great opportunities.” She cites Kevin DeYoung’s warning in Crazy Busy: the lie of our digital age is that we can be omni-present. We can’t. Jesus himself often withdrew to pray; so must we.

The Myth of the Great Opportunity

Many of us confuse opportunity with calling. Freeman offers a diagnostic exercise: finish the sentence, “This is a great opportunity to ____.” If the blank doesn’t match your current season, it’s not for you. A yes rooted in vanity or fear of missing out will drain life rather than give it. As she writes, “Just because someone else would love to do it doesn’t mean you have to.”

Absence for the Sake of Presence

Choosing absence isn’t withdrawal; it’s alignment. When you say no to performing, pleasing, or overcommitting, you say yes to attentiveness, family, and God. Absence creates holy ground for the essential work of simply being available to the moments and people that matter most.

Freeman assures us: your life’s work doesn’t need constant exposure to be faithful. The invitation is to “choose your inability and your ignorance—and choose wisely.” In choosing less, you make space for life abundant.

Near the close of the book, Freeman distills discernment down to one essential relationship: the one you have with your own soul. You won’t hear God if you’ve exiled yourself from yourself. “The only person you’re guaranteed to be with every day is you,” she writes. “Maybe it’s time to make some peace.”

Making Home Safe Again

Using the metaphor of her childhood neighbor’s intimidating house, Freeman shows how we often treat our own hearts like No Trespassing zones—standing on the porch of our souls, criticizing ourselves until even we refuse to come inside. Homecoming begins by exchanging self-contempt for hospitality. Be a kind hostess to your own soul.

Listening to Affirming Voices

Freeman recalls her friend Tsh telling her that she “feels pastored” by her. That word illuminated something true about her vocation. God’s affirmations often come disguised as compliments through others. Likewise, she encourages reflecting on moments when you felt most like yourself—those thin places where your soul said, “There I am.”

Coming home to yourself is not self-absorption but alignment with how God uniquely made you. As Macrina Wiederkehr’s prayer says, “O God, help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is.” Decision discernment begins here—with gentle self-acceptance that makes room for the voice of Love within.

Freeman concludes with a meditation on waiting as an act of faith. Inspired by astronaut Scott Kelly’s return from a year in space—an event overshadowed by political noise—she draws parallels between orbit and prayer, between quiet perseverance and divine timing. “The decision is rarely the point,” she writes again; “the point is living a good life with our good and beautiful God.”

The Sacred Work of Slow Growth

Like seeds buried in darkness, our unanswered questions mature underground. Freeman uses the earth’s tilt as metaphor: constant movement, shifting seasons, both light and dark necessary for life. When you can’t see the fruit, trust that something holy is breaking open beneath the soil. Waiting is not wasting; it’s germination.

Living Between Clarity and Trust

God rarely gives formulas. Abraham left home without a map, Moses without a timeline, Mary without guarantees. They were given not plans but presence. Freeman reminds you that God’s lamp is for your feet, not your football field (a phrase she borrows from Jamie B. Golden). When clarity is slow, look for vision instead—the stars, the whisper, the promise of companionship.

To wait with hope is to consent to life’s unfolding without tampering. As Brennan Manning wrote, “I would not devote one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth; I would simply do the next thing in love.” Freeman leaves readers there—rooted, breathing, and finally unhurried in the presence of God.