Choices, Choices, Choices
(Minute Meditation - April 2002)
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 misery 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. The way to life was clear 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 sleepyhead 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