All the folks in Smith Mountain Lake, Va., and all over the world, have been given a marvelous gift called “choice”.
If you have ever made a bad decision or had regrets about things you have done then you will understand the next couple of stories.
I have a friend who called me up and told me he had found the woman of his dreams. The next thing you know they are eloping after knowing each other for less than 2 months.
Everyone gave them good advice about taking it slow and being sure of their compatibility and most of all whether they were walking in God’s will. But their feelings of being in love won out.
A year later they were divorced. Today both their lives are broken and troubled. Neither one fully recovered from their devastated marriage and sought quick fixes to salve the pain (which led to worse problems in the long run.)
A neighbor lives on 8 acres or so and raises a variety of domestic animals. She takes great care of her animals and sees their upkeep diligently. But none of us are perfect. She told me that she had recently noticed one of her chickens was sick, but with her busy schedule that week, she had put off treating her. A few days later she died due to a lack of response from her owner.
No doubt you see the thread in these 2 tales. In each situation, the results could have been different if the choices involved had been different.
God has given us the miraculous gift of choice. It can be both wonderful and disastrous in the resulting consequences. Most of the horrible things that happen in this life are due to some human choice. Many decisions also lead to beautiful outcomes.
It’s simple really, life is made up of opportunities to choose from. Even our smallest choices have consequences for good or evil, much farther reaching than we realize.
Galatians 6:7 says “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
Too often we trick ourselves into thinking that the little choices we make do not matter. We rationalize decisions to make them acceptable to our minds and deceive ourselves into thinking there will be no consequences.
But we will all reap what we sow! So take advantage of the power God has given you to choose right and to choose life over death.