Ghandi once said, “Whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” I like that quote, but I don’t quite agree with it fully. I do think that what you do is important, but I don’t think that it is insignificant.
Every choice or decision you make has consequences; even the decision not to choose has its own consequences. Often times those consequences have the power to change the trajectory of your life, or someone else’s life. They have the power to heal or to wound; the ability to help or to hurt. Your decision can often times seem scary or even impossible. And many times the results of your choices are not black and white.
I’ve learned that one of the realities of becoming an adult is that your decisions seem to get harder. And it is impossible to make everyone happy. Sometimes your decisions even cause conflict within yourself. A part of you wants one thing, when the other part wants another. Sometimes it is easy to identify the right choice, but it goes against your nature. Other times you are stuck with two choices and both seem right, and you realize that either choice would be okay, but the outcomes will be two completely different realities.
The question then becomes, how do you make the right choice? Proverbs has insight into this concept. Proverbs 16:25 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Even when we think a choice seems right, it might be a choice that leads to death. We see things through a human’s finite frame of reference. However, God has an eternal perspective.
The choices you make today might seem insignificant, but usually the greatest disasters or breakthroughs start from an insignificant choice. For King David, the insignificant choice not to join his army in battle led to his moral downfall. For Abram, his decision to believe God resulted in a nation in which the whole world would be blessed.
For me, choosing to believe God instead of what would be culturally accepted at times has been hard, but choosing to believe God has also been the decision that has resulted in the biggest breakthroughs in my life. Whether God is asking me to choose to forgive someone who hurt me deeply, believe in someone I should have given up on, or leave everything I know to follow Him to the unknown, when I have chosen to believe Him, I’ve become a different version of myself. Those decisions have not been easy, but they have all changed my life for the better.
To continue with the pattern of giving my own opinion about popular quotes/songs, I will end with this. Rascal Flats sing a song called My Wish and in that song they sing, “When you’re faced with a choice and you have to choose, I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.” I hope instead you choose to, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
