Too Many Choices

A speaker during a regional conference was waxing eloquent as he sought to assess the reasons that society had taken such a drastic change in morals and attitudes over the past 30 years. His light-hearted but poignant conclusion was that Baskin Robbins was to blame for the decline in our social stability! The concern he raised was that people have too many choices, resulting in hyperactivity that tries to experience everything available. The range spans a lethargic indecision in being overwhelmed by all the possibilities to an isolationism structured around a “my favorite flavor” activity that keeps us from interacting with others and hinders building real relationships.

“Before Baskin Robbins”, he quipped, “you only had two choices, chocolate or vanilla, with an occasional foray into strawberry. With the dawn of 31 flavors we had the freedom to choose, but lacked the time and resources to experience all 31!” His point was interesting. Through the option of too many choices the undisciplined ability to choose can, and has, led to all the crippling frustrations that plague the world’s interpersonal relationships. Choice, while an essential part of our freedom and nature, was never intended to be exalted to the lofty position it holds in our society today.

In the Bible we discover choice as it was originally gifted to men by their Creator – not to be worshipped as a core philosophy, but rather used to magnify the most vital of all human expressions; real, honest love! The truth of free will – the ability to choose – is central to the Kingdom of God. Although God is a perfect and holy source of truth and relationship, He has given us the freedom to make our own decisions about everything in life. Love requires nothing less.

Love is always expressed clearly and unmistakably in our choices. What we love we will choose. The only inescapable aspect of free will is that we must experience the results and consequences of each choice. Those experiences are meant to then become our guiding principle when making wise choices. Good choices (generally) produce good results, and bad choices (generally) produce bad results.

The wonderful thing is that when I choose God’s way, He is also in charge of the results!

How exciting to be His people,

Pastor David Vanderpool

Image retrieved from:  https://tamrynj.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/life-is-about-making-choices-even-tainted-ones/