The greatest power humans possess is the power and freedom to make choices. By the time we reach our mid 20's our life looks mostly like the choices we have been making. If we want better lives we are free to make different choices and in time, our lives will reflect those choices. Some bad things that happen to us, of course, are not of our choosing. But we are free to choose how we respond to those bad things.
Victor Frankel, the famous Jewish psychologist, made this point in his classic book, "Man's Search For Meaning." One of the core insights he gained from his years in Nazi concentration camps is that when we are utterly victimized, suffering helplessly at the hands of others, one final power we have that cannot be taken away is our power to choose how to respond. He says that those in the camps who chose hope and a future tended to survive. Those who gave up died.
In Deuteronomy 30:19-20, God tells Israel to "choose life."
Life equals prosperity, health, and long life for us and our children.
In the context of these verses, choosing life is:
loving God and listening to his voice.
That voice we most clearly hear is in the Gospels, the voice of God's visible image, Jesus Christ.
Jesus is constantly calling us to make choices for life that result in life more abundant. His list of choices that lead to life is long.
The list, while longer than this, looks something like this:
- Repeatedly Jesus tells us to choose trust and faith over worry. Some of us find it hard to believe that worry is a choice, but it is. We can't choose not to worry directly. We just worry unless we choose to focus on and fill our imaginations with the Father Jesus knows. Jesus, who knows the Father personally, says he is a good, caring, providing, loving Father who is very fond of you. We are totally free to believe him and since what he says is true, we can believe with confidence.
- We can choose repentance over guilt. Shame is feeling bad for who you are. It is always wrong, wrong, wrong. What can we say except - just stop it. Guilt is the result of what we do. Feeling bad for doing bad is the evidence of mental health, but it shouldn't last long. You were forgiven every sin, past, present, and future in the death and resurrection of Jesus 2000 years ago. We access and feel that provision by owning our sin, making no excuses, confessing it and saying thank you for forgiveness.
- We can choose forgiveness over bitterness. Forgiveness is a choice. We can do it. We can state it. While we don't have to feel forgiveness to forgive, in time, we are likely to feel what we choose to do. Our forgiving may do nothing for the person forgiven, but in so doing, we set ourselves free. We open ourselves up to more life. We literally choose life.
- We can choose contentment over envy, community over isolation, love for the poor over indifference, prayer over T.V., etc.
I know people, even have family members, who don't want life. They have chosen to see themselves as victims. Self pity is their dominant emotion. They say they are OK with that. Hopefully, you are not one of these.
Thank you Father for providing all I need in life. I'm so happy that you are fond of me.