The Power of Choice
Earlier this spring, I took my daughters to see a ballet of C.S Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. I knew it was a complicated story for children, so, on the way home, I began to ask them what they thought of the story. One of my daughters asked this question, “Mom, why didn’t the good angels just capture the people and bring them to heaven? Why did they give them the option to go to the bad side?” I knew the question that came from my 10-year-old was one that has been discussed all around the world in every setting imaginable. I tried my best to simplify it to one word. Choice. No, we cannot choose everything in our lives or every situation we encounter, but we can choose some things. We can choose whom to serve.
Joshua 23:14-15 says this:
“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
In the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, God begins to lay out His law and how the people were to worship him. At the end of it all, the people had a choice. They had the ability to choose whether they were going to follow His instructions or whether they were going to ignore Him. In that same way, we have a choice everyday whether we are going to trust God and His ways or whether we are going to continue in the sin where we have grown comfortable.
Whether we are going to continue in pride or humble ourselves and turn our focus outward.
Whether we are going to listen to the lies of the world or the Truth of God’s Word.
Whether we are going to seek friendships or settle for competition with our sisters in Christ.
The choices go on and on, but the biggest lie we can believe from Satan is the lie that we don’t have a choice. Satan wants us to believe we are stuck, too far gone, and too bound up in the circumstances of our lives to escape. That is never true. God is always holding out his hand, laying out his law, and offering us the grace to choose life.
Deuteronomy 30:19
“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live.”
