Life Choices
I woke up this morning and realized a valuable truth, I have to live with me. When everyone and everything else walks away I will still be faced with me, and the decisions that I make now dictate the me that I will be left with.
Our choices are based on a million different circumstances, but our character is dependent on those choices. Every choice I make molds my character. I either become reliable or unreliable, grateful or ungrateful, helpful or hurtful.
As we make daily choices we are molding a lifetime character that will direct the destinations of our lives. Every single "yes" we give is also an automatic "no". Not only is it essential that we learn to say "yes" to the right things, but we must equally learn to say "no" to the wrong things.
It's very easy to compare our lives with other's - the girl who seems to have it all, the super mom, the homemaker. It's also easy to blame our choices on circumstances or people around us. However, our choices are independent of everything going on around us. They are OUR choices, and despite our desire to shun responsibility we choose exactly what we want to choose. Our choices alone have painted our lives in sometimes dangerous directions, and many of us are coming to grips with a sobering reality that we are responsible for our own lives. It's never what people do to you, but it's how you choose to respond to it.
The blessing, even in making wrong choices, is that every single day is a new opportunity to make a new decision. Every day is an opportunity to change directions, and every new day provides a new canvas to recreate beauty upon. The simple answer is we have to make a new choice, and as we consistently make the right choice we earn back the credibility of our character.
The hard part is that most of our choices are tied up in emotions and circumstances. We revert to selfishness, arrogance, entitlement, territorialism. It's our natural inclination towards sin that drives us, and it's easy to feel that it's us against the world. What if, as we struggled to make daily choices, we drew closer to Christ thereby further from sin? What if we evaluated good choices by becoming selfless, humble, giving, and accepting? What if we made choices that uplifted the greater good rather then our own personal good?
I'm not saying you or I will get it right every time. I'm saying that effort is louder then lazyness. If we sit and watch our lives move past us we will find ourselves in places and situations we never really wanted to be in. We have the opportunity to choose change, to make a difference, to control aspects of how we achieve purpose. It's all in making a choice, and making a choice is just a question of what we are motivated by. Are you motivated by who you are or what you want? The truth is, one will always outweigh the other. Who you are has the capability to leave imprints on people's lives and impact the world around you. What you want is simply temporary and fleeting at best.
I personally want what lasts. When we begin to want our character more then our comfort we will begin to look more and more like Christ.
How would the world change if others became the center of your focus? The greater good over our personal good, and sacrifice over selfishness. If everyone cared about someone then no one would be forgotten.
Let's make it our mission to just care about someone other then ourselves today and remember we are the only ones who can choose change. At the end of everyday YOU are the only you that you will have to live with anyway. Make your life count!
