06 Sep There is Always a Choice
While having dinner at a friend’s house years ago, he marveled at the wide variety of foods our then five and six year old girls enjoyed. He was a chef from Barcelona, and had prepared a raw seafood salad among other delicious dishes that would be considered exotic for most American children. He was especially surprised when one of my girls reached for a leggy piece of squid and popped it into her mouth with absolute delight. I explained to him, as I had done previously to many of the girls’ friends’ mothers, that their extensive palate was developed over time by having the same choices as the adults at the dinner table. The inevitable question of “Is there a choice?” never came up until after spending the night with a neighborhood girl who only ate hotdogs and mac & cheese which was specially prepared for her every night. But when it did arise, my reply was “Of course there is a choice-eat it, or don’t, but that is all we are having tonight.”
I’ve recounted this story to lots of other mother’s over the years. Some look completely horrified while others congratulate me. The bottom line for my girls was they each made the choice to “not eat it” only once as I recall but by doing so learned that going to bed hungry wasn’t a good option. As their mother, it was my job to help them make the right choice, but give them space to “suffer?” consequences of making the “wrong” choice so they could learn from it.
I view sin in much the same way as we always have a choice to do it or not. We know the difference between right and wrong. When we accepted Christ and became a new creation in Him we were given the Holy Spirit as an inner helper (John 14:16-17) to guide us and provide self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7). This certainly doesn’t mean we are immune to sinning, King David being a famous example of an imperfect human who retained God’s favor despite his repeated offenses. It does mean sin holds no power over us and we have the freedom to make a choice rather than being a slave to sin. Sin like death has lost its sting, but if and only if we have been made new in Jesus Christ.
Daily prayer helps us in our endeavors to stay on the righteous path. My simple prayer is “Lord, give me a mind to discern, a will to pursue, and a body to carry out the plans you have for me.”
Your Sister in Christ,
Shelly Good-Cook
Office Manager
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