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Choices, Choices, Choices
There is a choice you have to make, In everything you do.
And you must always keep in mind, The choice you make, makes you.
Our entire life is made up of choices. Often the difference between
happiness and miserableness or living and just existing is making the
right choice. Abraham Lincoln once said that most people are about as happy
as they make up their minds to be. He was right. It is amazing how many
people evidently wake up in the morning and say to themselves, "I choose to be
miserable today." Just by looking into the faces of those people you
can tell that was their choice.
Making the right choice is more important than just choosing to be
happy; it can make the difference between life and death. A recent example is the
choice whether to go up or down in the stairwell of the World Trade
Center.
At the time no one knew which decision would lead to life. The way to
life was much clearer when Moses laid down a challenge to the children of
Israel; he said,
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore
choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:"
Choosing life would seem to be an easy decision to make, but in fact
the children of Israel made the wrong choice. They actually said, "Would
God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this
wilderness!" when they murmured against Moses and Aaron. Sadly they got
their wish. Be careful what you ask for, because the Lord may very well
give it to you.
Joshua at the end of his life gave the people a choice. He made the
right choice himself and wanted the people to follow suit, but he could not
make them. God will not make us choose the good either. Joshua appealed to
the people, saying, "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose
you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served
that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in
whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." In
response "the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve,
and his voice will we obey." That was the right choice for them and it is
the right choice for us.
As the little ditty says, "the choice you make, makes you." We are a
sum of all the choices we have made in our lives, whether they are good ones
or not.
God does give us free will, and we can choose which way we want to go.For example, every morning when we wake up we can choose to get up, or
stay in bed. Getting up is obviously the right choice.
There is an old Hebrew proverb which says, "The reason most people fail
instead of succeed is that they trade what they want most for what they
want at the moment." King Solomon describes the sleepy-head this way, "A
little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, so
shall thy poverty come," and "As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the
slothful upon his bed." So the lazy one who turns over and refuses to
jump out of bed to face life is choosing what he wants at the moment, a
little more sleep, rather than what he should want most in life, to rise to
serve the Lord. We need to begin each day by making right choices every
morning--getting up, thinking that this is the day which the Lord hath
made, and then rejoicing and deciding to make it a good day.
If the daily choices we make are based upon our faith and love for God,
then we will make sure we have time to read the Bible, to pray for guidance,
to do kind deeds for others, as well as the mundane tasks required in our
life.
David once asked, "Teach me thy way, O Lord." We would like God to
teach us, also. Not everyone is given this privilege. "What man is he that
feareth the LORD?" David asks and then continues, " him shall he
teach in the way that he shall choose." If we want God to teach us, we need to
show our fear of Him by making choices that reflect our desire to serve and
obey Him.
There is a choice you have to make in everything you do, So you must
always keep in mind, that the choice you make, makes you.
Robert J. Lloyd