Jos 24:15 "If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Psa 25:12 Who is the man who fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way he should choose.
Choices matter! Each choice takes us down a road that has many more choices ahead, but the one thing that isn't available to us, when we have made a choice, is the opportunity to make the choices that would have been on the road we DIDN'T take. What I mean is this- If I choose to get angry with a friend, vent my anger at that person, tell them what I think....then there will be other choices that follow that choice...for me and for my friend, but the one choice I no longer have is the choice to not vent how I feel....and I no longer have the choices that would go with that choice... the choices to be quiet, to forgive, to love, to let an offense go....and to be able to see all the choices that one choice generates from the other person as well.
All of those choices are now gone for me...I didn't take that road, so I have no idea what options there are for me if I had chosen that action. My one choice creates avenues for hundreds of others, but the one choice I no longer can choose is the alternate choice to my first choice......I've gone "west", "east" is not an option for me now. Are you confused yet?
I've been thinking about this in my own life. I have choices to make about what I say, what I do, how I interact, how I respond to my emotions, how I respond to situations, how I respond to everything! And all of that, unfiltered, will be a series of choices that eliminate other choices.
I realize that I need a road map, a filtering system, a way to evaluate my hundreds of daily choices because my heart is selfish. I will not choose well without help...and that's why I read and pour over the bible. It's the road map, the filter that will help me make the right choice so that I have the opportunity to make other right choices ahead.
My wife tells the story of traveling to her mother’s home a few years ago, and on the trip she made a wrong turn onto a toll-way. As soon as she made the choice she knew she had made a mistake, but there was no option to turn around, her choice forced her in the wrong direction….and for 25 miles she had to go in the wrong direction (there were no exits) until she could find an exit, turn around and go the right way. Her one choice dictated other choices ahead of her. And she had to pay for her mistake both ways!
I see this in lives around me. When every choice we make is filtered through the “what do I want” filter those choices will lead us down a road with a whole series of other choices, but we will completely miss all the choices that were on the road of “what does God want”. As I think through this in my mind it begins to cascade in my thinking….the choice and the result….what happens next….it’s like the domino competitions I have seen…thousands of dominoes all stacked in a certain way, and then one domino is tipped over…it creates a cascade of responses from the other dominoes…one choice creates a whole series of results.
Choices matter.
How are you making your choices?
1 comment:
Now why did you have to ask that last question?
Sometimes I'm ok at making decisions, sometimes not so good. Like the other day when I got howling mad because the dog chewed up my favorite plant and a bag of charcoal. Can't go back and not yell so loud all the neighbors hear me.
Thankfully at this point the Lord has given me U-turns. I'm not impulsive (it takes me forever to make a decision) and during that time I sometimes remember to actually think through a decision. But with the dog, I took the Exit Now for Anger and that didn't work out too well.
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