Decisions, Decisions

~ Jeremiah 6:16

This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

The Problem: Choices! Each time our eyes open to a new day, immediate decisions will be made.  Rise? … or rollover? Decaf … or high-test? Love one another … or stay out of the way and keep your head down? Each choice is ours alone. To make things more interesting, our will doesn’t have a dollar sign attached. It’s free! We have no financial restrictions for our wishes! But the consequence of our choice is a whole other matter. It can be costly. Some choices produce complete financial ruin!  Others render heart-filling, spirit-lifting bonanzas! Making the right choice can feel so good. But, a wrong decision, not so much!

Some decisions are easily made, “falling off a log” easy. We already know that the result of a particular choice will be physically or emotionally pleasing to us. We also know that the outcome is primarily inevitable and 99% guaranteed. However, some options need a little more contemplation. Several factors might need to be weighed before we push a button, pull a lever, or sign on a dotted line. Still others appear to be an unconscious act, “knee-jerk,” without a conscious thought to temper the outcome. Automatic or psychosomatic? No effort is needed! They're not choices; they’re more like automated responses. Regardless, all of our choices need to be cautiously considered. Some of their effects are felt instantaneously. Others might be experienced years after the fact. Still, others will never reach a complete resolution, a perpetual question mark, a “hung jury.”

Each day, we make hundreds of choices with hundreds of corresponding aftereffects. These choices script our lives. The ensuing dialogues become lines we speak as featured actors in our film noir. Let’s face it: Major decisions are the milestones on our life’s Trip-Tik (reference for AAA members only.) We can never be sure where to find correct answers to our questions. “How do I make good, better, best decisions? I’m not sure. My owner’s manual must have gotten lost in the mail.”

The Promise: Good news! It didn’t get lost! It’s all written out for us in God’s Living Word. It says here when we “stand at the crossroads” in a decision-making situation, we are to “look.” Look for how His Word recommends us to act. Look to others in the Bible who have had to make the same life-changing decisions. Look to learn from their victories and benefit from their defeats. That’s why He gives it to us to study and read “The Finer Print”. Don’t worry. No one ever gets it right the first time. “Believing the stove is hot takes many blistered fingers.” But if we can’t find a definite answer, His Word says we are to ask. “Ask for the ancient paths.” You will be answered with how others journeyed through their dark times. And how they emerged from darkness into the light of salvation and freedom. By their example, they can lead us by following “the good way” set before them by the Holy Spirit. That “good way” might be narrow and filled with “roadwork ahead” signs. Nevertheless, we see it and accept it as the Father’s will, not our own. “Thine, not mine!” It’s the best road built on the firm foundation of the Solid Rock, Jesus Christ! That will be the best decision we will ever make! Guaranteed! We want to go Your way, Yahweh!

And when we reach the end of our journey, we’ll see a signpost ahead. And on that signpost will be written in more prominent, not “finer print:”

Welcome to Paradise!

The ultimate vacation destination!

Rest your souls!

~ Jeremiah 6:16

This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”