“For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33a).
President Ronald Reagan used to tell the story of when his aunt took him to have a pair of shoes made when he was a little boy.
The cobbler asked young Ronnie if he wanted square toes or round toes, but he couldn’t decide. A few days later the cobbler saw him on the street and asked if he had decided, but Ronnie still hadn’t made up his mind, so the cobbler said, “Just come by in a few days and your shoes will be ready.”
Upon arriving to pick up his shoes, Ronnie saw that the cobbler had made one square toe shoe and the other round. He looked the lad in the eye and said, “This will teach you to never let people make your decisions for you!”
In this world we are surrounded by almost unlimited choices. We can get 1,000,000 items from Amazon in 2-hours, nuke 1000s of lunches in 60-seconds, and dial through 200 channels on TV. But somewhere between convenience and choice, we have desensitized ourselves, numbed ourselves, to WHICH CHOICES are HEALTHY for us and which are NOT.
And to add insult to injury, if don’t make up our minds, someone else who is in a greater hurry than we are, will MAKE UP OUR MINDS FOR US.
When we’re trying to figure out what our BEST CHOICES are for our relationships, for our jobs, for our families, for our entertainment, even for our FAITH, we can feel so burdened by so many CHOICES that we may LOSE OUR FREEDOM TO CHOOSE!
In 1 Kings 18:21, Elijah alone represented God in front of the 450 prophets of Baal that were against him.
“Elijah went before the people and said, ‘How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.’ But the people said nothing.” [The people said nothing because they didn’t like the 450:1 odds. They were afraid to make the RIGHT CHOICE. Yet, in spite of their lack of faith, GOD PROVED HIMSELF TO THEM.]
There are many ways that God’s Word offers to help in our decisions, to help us in our ability to make the right choices, the God-honoring choices. Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience GOD’S PEACE, which exceeds anything we can understand. HIS PEACE will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
In all our chaos, God gives us a way to deal with all our choices. And He not only gives us a way to cope, He gives us BETTER CHOICES. Choose God. Choose Jesus. Choose HIS better choices.
David McCall
Executive Pastor
