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Choose to Choose

If life were a line drawing, the points along the line would consist of all the choices we’ve made. Every day we’re confronted with decisions. Sometimes we can delay making them. Really skilled procrastinators can put things off so long that the need for a decision expires, though in doing so, they’ve made the decision by choosing to not make a decision.

Often, though, we are forced to make a decision at the moment. What shall I wear today? Will I take time for breakfast? What appeals to me? Which route should I take to work? Can I turn this corner safely before that car gets to the intersection? I think our brains would start to spasm if we tried to count all of the decision we make in a day.

Even though we make literally hundreds of choices in our waking hours, they are not all “decisions.” Many of our choices are based on previous decisions. Now we just follow the pattern. One website I visited claims we make about 200 food-related decisions each day. (Many of which I personally make in a positive way!) Many of those decisions will be unconscious. How many of us have picked up an empty potato chip or cookie bag and wondered where its contents went. We remember eating the first two or three, after that, our hand just kept moving, seemingly involuntarily, from the bag to our mouth.

When people want to take control of some aspect of their lives (whether eating, self-improvement or regarding relationships) the first thing they need to do is overcome the tendency to make choices without thinking. They have to start consciously processing everything concerning the change they want to make. This requires what I call “self-monitoring.” We have to be aware of each impulse whether it is to put our hand into the cookie jar, turning on the TV, or picking up the telephone. Only after they are aware at this level can they make the decision which will change the course of their action and, hopefully, the course of their life.

The Bible is full of advice, admonitions, precepts, principles, laws and commands. In some way, each one of these calls for a decision. Yet often, we just muddle along “doin’ what comes natur’lly” as the song says (from the musical “Annie, Get Your Gun). We don’t think. We don’t even want to think. We just want to do what will please us at the time.

If we’re going to make spiritual progress, we need to start self-monitoring a lot more. We need to become aware of the choices we’re making without engaging our mental faculty. We need to be alert to things that contribute to our making bad choices, the “triggers” which initiate automatic responses, the sinful behaviours we’ve given up fighting and accept as inevitable, the ignorance of what exactly God wants of His children, starting with all of us generally, and getting to each of us in particular.

There is so much to consider regarding the choices we make as Christians that I’m going to run a series here to stimulate our thinking. Over the next few weeks we’ll think about a number of things we should choose as we learn to walk with Jesus.

As we close this time together, let’s meditate on this from Ephesians 1: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6 ESV)

Since God chose me in Christ even before creation began, how can I help but choose to respond positively to Him?

Ron Hughes
© January 2009