Choices
All people experience highs and lows in the course of their lives. However, not everyone knows why they experience the things they do. Some become bitter and angry – wanting to blame others when they experience the lows. Some, on the other hand, come through either extreme with inner peace. Why the discrepancy?
The most common reaction to negative outcomes is that of “victim thinking” when we are down. It has got to be someone else’s fault. This reasoning is documented from the beginning, in the first couple. God asked them if they had disobeyed. “Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ And the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” (Genesis 3:12–13). Adam blamed both the woman and God for his decision and Eve blamed the serpent for hers. That is the spiritual template that the first couple put in place through Satan’s deception.
So, we could deduce that a lack of personal accountability – victim thinking — is why some become bitter and angry when things go awry. That, of course is only partially true. We need to know what it is that drives such a twisted frame of mind. From the Eden account we know that once Eve, and then Adam, chose to disregard God’s instruction in favor of their own reasoning, their faith in God was displaced. That is the state of mind that breeds anger and discontent over our bad choices.
Our God gives us His truth to live by, but He does not force us to choose His way. He said, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Guided by living faith, we can choose life. Guided by dead faith, (knowing God is God, but trusting in our own reasoning) we can choose death.
Guided by faith, King David wrote, “I have chosen the way of truth; Your judgments I have laid before me. I cling to Your testimonies; O Lord, do not put me to shame! I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart” (Psalm 119:30–32). David made a committed choice to follow God’s truth and to stick to it through the highs and lows of his unpredictable life. And notice that he did not say that he would walk in God’s way, but that he would run in it. Running denotes a deep desire to finish the race. That is how the faithful run.
The faithful know that they can still make bad choices, as we sometimes do. David sums up the way that the faithful are able to come through the highs and lows of life with the inner peace that evades so many. “Let Your hand become my help, for I have chosen Your precepts. I long for Your salvation, O Lord, and Your law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise You; and let Your judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments” (Psalm 119:173–176).
In faith we seek God’s help as we learn to cling to His truth daily in the choices we make, each of which we are personally accountable for. Knowing that we are indeed accountable and choosing God’s way over our own is where peace of mind has its roots.
Marshall Stiver
