Life is filled with choices. Every day we make thousands of decisions. Sometimes we make good decisions and other times our choices are not so good.
We celebrate the freedom we have to make choices. It is a beautiful thing that God did not make us to be puppets, controlling our every action. But on the other side of the freedom to make our decisions, lies the consequences of those decisions.
Over the next couple of weeks, I would like to talk about what goes into the choices we make and how to make better choices. It is about living intentionally.
Think about the choices you make every day. You make a choice to get out of bed. You make a choice about what to eat for breakfast. You make a choice to brush your teeth. You make a choice to leave the house. In between all those choices are hundreds of other little choices. All of those decisions add up and determine the course of our lives.
Some choices are made by default. You don’t think about them. You just do them. You make the choice out of habit or assumption. You may not even realize that there is an alternative.
Geico has a whole advertising campaign centered around this idea. The tagline is “It’s what you do.” Check out the following commercial:
“It’s what you do!” Of course, the band Europe could sing a different song. Just because they sung it once, does not mean it is the only song they can sing.
Living intentionally is about challenging the assumptions we make. It is recognizing that our default choices are not our only choices. There may be better choices. What you do is not what you have to do.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
Consider this – changing just one our two unintentional choices could radically alter your life. Maybe you feel stuck. You are waiting for that one big to happen to change your situation. But what if it wasn’t about that one big thing? What if it was about a few little things you do every day?
Many of us default to sitting down to watch TV each night. We don’t think about it. The TV is there. It is easy to turn on. We may be tired. We plop ourselves down on the chair and turn on the mindless entertainment. But what if instead defaulting to turn on the TV you opened up a book to learn about something that fascinated you? What if you make a point to open up your Bible for 15 minutes before watching TV? This could have a huge impact upon the direction of your life.
Or consider the people with whom you interact. Do you interact with people who are talking about the latest gossip? Or do you interact with people stimulate you intellectually? Do you interact with people who are constantly complaining about their lives and the people around them? Or you interact with people who encourage you and build you up in faith? We often default to people we know and are comfortable being around. But what would happen if you made the intentional choice interact and learn from people who are where you want to be?
These are just two small choices we make every day. My encouragement for you is to see the possibilities. Ask God for the wisdom to recognize that your default does not need to be your default. God has called you to abundance and has given you a path if you are willing to let him open your eyes to it.
Questions for Reflection
- What is one small but intentional choice you could make today that would significantly alter your direction in life?
- What hinders us from seeing other possibilities?
- How do you keep yourself from going back to your default choices?
- Share your comments.
Lisa Knight says
I made three deliberate decisions today. The first was to listen to Pastor Greg Laurie onmy morning drive to work. The second was to re-start my commitment to drink 100 oz of water each day. Finally, I read this daily devotional as soon as I saw it instead of saying I will read it later. It is so easy to overlook these things by saying I will do it later or let me address x, y or z and then I will get to it. I have to be committed to making sure these things happen daily.