GOOD CHOICES 

Life is filled with a continuous line of choices, 24/7. When we talk about that subject, we generally think of the big ones like choice of spouse, choice of career, choice of car. Yet, the more this topic comes up in my own mind, the more I understand that it is the “little” choices that set our course daily.

Many times, people have told me that the reason they do this or that is because that’s the way their parents did it. They are not talking about peeling tomatoes before you eat them or doing the wash on Mondays. There are a lot of things that get passed down from generation to generation like buying a certain kind of car or buying a flower for a wife or mom on Mother’s Day…or wearing a only a certain kind of shoes.

The ones I’ve been thinking about though, might even be referred to as insignificant… or “who cares” choices. For example, after you have dinner in the living room, should you pick up your “stuff” and not only take it to the kitchen, but see it through? “My dad never did it,” you say or you muse, or you don’t give it a second thought. But, it’s a choice…but it’s not just a for-the-moment choice. It’s like a pebble in the pond, whichever way you go. If you take the few minutes to get up and put your dishes and “stuff” away, what are the positive consequences?

Your living room is clean while you finish the rest of the movie or the book or the conversation. Your living room and your kitchen are in better shape the next morning. Your “next morning” is smoother because the dishwasher was turned on the night before or you washed your few things and turned them upside down in the dish drainer. Your mom…or your wife…or your husband…or your kids…are impressed with your obvious desire to work at keeping the house clean and to pitch in to make life a little easier. You got up out of your chair and moved around a little, thus enhancing your digestion. You have joined into the scheme of things, like a tiny, but vital, gear in a watch, and done your part to keep things ticking. You have taken part in guarding your marriage or your family. You have put down a brick towards an orderly lifestyle for today, and for the future. You have overcome a common human bent to be lazy and uncaring. You have engaged in a very small step of discipline, yet is not discipline a series of baby steps towards self-control? You have heeded one of those much neglected exhortations in God’s Word on the subject of order and against laziness.

Hmmmm. All that? I’m sure there’s more. And all day long, you come to little forks in the road and you choose. You choose, you choose, you choose. Say something nice to that person? Stay up too late? Stay at work too long? Call your grandfather? Clean the car? Write a note? And every time there is a chance to make a good choice, there is a counter choice that is just plain, not good. I’m not talking about whether to have chocolate or strawberry ice cream. I’m talking about a choice between writing a note to your friend who is going through a hard time or watching another movie in your recliner.

I guess it all boils down to what it is you care about. If you care about becoming a better person every day, you’ll get up, pick up your dishes and take care of them in the kitchen. If you don’t, you’ll take pleasure in excuses…my dad was like this, my wife doesn’t do her part, I’m just a kid, I’ll do it tomorrow. If the amazing word “discipline” means anything to you at all, you won’t wake up one day way down a path you never actually wanted to travel and with a nearly impossible task of getting back on the right one. Take heed to little choices!