Choices

By John T. McNeal   

As we continue through this New Year, let it be known that this year is the year of choices. I’m not just talking about the Presidential elections, although that will be one choice many Americans will have the opportunity to make. In 2008, people will have the opportunity to change or make history within their very own lives.

Before we go any farther about the choices in 2008, let’s look at some of the choices of 2007, including some made by groups and some by individuals.

    *Seung-Hui Cho chose to take the lives of fellow students and professors, before ending his own life on the Virginia Tech Campus.

• Three Christians were tortured and killed for producing Christian literature in the eastern province of Turkey.

• The Supreme Court upheld its 2003 decision on the federal partial-birth abortion ban.

• Barry Bonds broke Babe Ruth’s record, and then months later was indicted for lying under oath.

 

• On May 28, 2007, Answers in Genesis opened a 60,000 square foot Creation Museum, furthering their cause to disprove that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and to show that dinosaurs coexisted with man from the beginning.

Each of these choices created a chain of events that impacted lives outside those of each individual or group that made them.

In each event, someone made the choice to change history for good or for bad. For some people, the choice meant taking someone’s life. Others' choices meant positively impacting someone else’s life, causing improvement to lifestyle or circumstance.

During this year, every individual on this planet will have choices to make. Some choices in life are as simple as choosing what shirt to wear, or what to eat for breakfast. Some choices have very little impact on a person’s surroundings. Other choices have greater, more complex impacts on other individuals. Cutting your grass is a relatively simple choice; cutting your neighbors’ grass while they are on vacation or helping an elderly person with his or her yard work may have more far-reaching effects. These choices can benefit both parties by adding value to the individual, besides that it is just a neighborly thing to do.

Many good choices are possible. Choices like getting on a budget in order to get out of debt, sharing the love of Christ with a stranger, getting engaged to the love of your life, deciding to read the entire Bible, and forgiving others of trespasses as God forgives us of ours. The outcome of those choices can and will affect people’s lives.

I hope that our walks with Jesus Christ will be better this year than last year. I pray that we become better Christians at work, school, play, and home in 2008, than we were in 2007. After all it is our choice.

Ephesians 6:7-8 "Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free."

 {mos_fb_discuss:30}