As I approach my mid 60’s, suddenly, everyone is interested in me selecting them for my medical insurance program. You know, medicare. Part A, B, C and any other alphabet combination I’m forgetting.
I don’t have time to simply choose what someone else suggests. Or rage about their worse choice ever. However, I must make time to make a good choice.
The phone rings incessantly – sales and marketing folks, I’m sure. The mailbox is getting loaded up with all the brand names of companies (I’ll not give them credit by mentioning them here) and tons more of no-namers.
Essentially, it’s frustrating to have so many choices!
It Reminds Me of Fruit Shoppers
This sort of reminds me of the Democratic race for the presidency. Someone needs to help me weed out the worst, identify the best, and then choose as we mostly do – according to the price!
If you are the shopper in the family, then you know what I’m talking about. You walk up an aisle in the produce section and people are analyzing every single piece of fruit or vegetables!
Thump, thump, thump. Squeeze. Poke. Prod. Smell. Look for bruises and nicks. Feel for the firmness, or not, and relocate those nicely stacked ears and pods into a jumbled mess.
Recently, a lady spent excessive minutes trying to choose the best avocado possible, and then turned to me, “I don’t know!” I smiled, and picked up several she had discarded and headed for the registers!
Here’s My Thought Today
We all need to have good decision-making skills. The wishy-washy mindset just won’t cut it. The craziness of standing between two opinions and not being able to make up the mind.
Elijah was caught up in a contest between worshippers of a false god, and those who still didn’t comprehend God. He challenged 450 worshippers to a contest. Let’s show who has true power!
Elijah stood up in front of all the people and asked them,
“How long will you try to have it both ways?
If the LORD is God, follow him; if Baal is God, follow him.”
The people didn’t say a word.
(1 Kings 18:21 GW)
Follow the story and you will find there was no true contest. When you raise the flag of truth over falsehood, the truth will always win.
Think it through.
You know to do right, but you choose the wrong path. Paul described the choices of his life as if he could not do the right thing.
In fact, the word “sin” is mentioned more in Romans than in any other book in the New Testament. Take it a step further, only one other book in the entire Bible talks about “sin” more! Leviticus. This was during the time when the law was being consolidated into the 613 commandments recognized by Judaism today. During this time, God was telling Israel how to make the right choices!
Listen as Paul illogically defines his view of logical choices. It’s a little lengthy, but you will get a picture of his dilemma.
Paul’s Logic
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For what I am doing, I do not understand.
For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells;
for to will is present with me,
but how to perform what is good I do not find.
For the good that I will to do, I do not do;
but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.
Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it,
but sin that dwells in me.
I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.
For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
(Romans 7:14-24 NKJV)
If Paul struggled with Good Choices, how much more difficult is it for us?
Options
The variety of directions we have before us is astronomically huge! And it’s growing exponentially bigger every day! What do you do?
For me, some choices are easier than ever before. If you have a mechanism of narrowing down the field of choices, you can weed out those that do not meet your standards.
Too many choices? Define your desires and limit your choices based on that selection criteria. Weed out the choices that do not meet your standards, and then be content to choose only from those things that matter to you. Share on XChoose Wisely
Though thousands of years old, literature and the bible all describe making good choices, as well as bad. Since we always look back to others before making steps forward, let me give you a couple of good quotes for you to consider.
“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
~Aristotle
“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.”
(Joshua 24:14-15 NKJV)