Choose You This Day (September 21, 2003)

Sometimes you just have to make a decision.

In Sunday School the other day I noted that Abraham’s servant pressed Rebekah’s family for a decision about whether they would let her go marry Isaac. “Tell me one way or the other,” he said (Genesis 24:49). They said yes, but then tried to stretch it out 10 days. He refused to put up with the delay.

Challenges to make a decision occur often in Scripture. Abraham said to Lot, “Pick the land you want. If you go left, I’ll go right. If you go right, I’ll go left” (Genesis 13:9). Joshua said to the Israelites, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Paul urged Herod Agrippa II to convert to Christ on the spot, prompting the king to say, “You want me to become a Christian now?” (Acts 26:28).

Yes, now. There is a time to pause, ponder, think, weigh, calculate - and there is a time to decide. If you will permit me to poke fun at my own church, I would say that we seem to be gifted ponderers but challenged deciders. Maybe that is why I have always felt so comfortable at Faith Bible Church - I blend in. A friend once pegged
my personality by saying, “I know someone who likes to say, ‘I don’t think - I react.’ You’re the opposite, Paul. You don’t react - you think.”

True, but at least I can make up my mind about where to eat lunch. Yesterday when Ben and I were finishing our sandwiches at Wendy’s a couple FBC families walked in, and I learned there had been another one of those group “Where are we going to eat?” discussions in the parking lot. For some reason, these discussions take a LOT longer
among us than they do among normal people. I still remember, with frank astonishment, that 2-hour discussion back in December about where to eat after the upcoming ice skating party. A “decision” was finally made - only to be overturned the night of the party!

Indecision isn’t always bad. Personal indecision is often motivated by a legitimate fear of choosing badly. Group indecision often springs from genuine courtesy - a desire to ensure that all voices are heard and that everyone’s inclinations are taken into account.

But good grief, sometimes you’ve just got to make a decision and go with it. Hesitation about where to eat lunch is trivial, but in matters like war, indecision on the part of Union Generals McClelland and Meade lengthened the Civil War by several years and cost tens of thousands of lives. And indecision about spiritual matters can bear eternal cost.

In C. S. Lewis' novel The Great Divorce, an angel tries to persuade a borderline soul to repent. The sinner wants to put off the decision. He’ll think about it, go home, and come back the first moment he can. The angel responds, “This moment contains all moments.”

If you are waiting to make a decision between sinning and not sinning, wait no longer. This moment contains all moments. Choose what is good. In murky matters that do not involve moral concerns, pray and choose as best you can as quickly as you can. Yes, you’ll make some mistakes and have some regrets. But you’ll make even more mistakes and have even more regrets if the only real choice you make is to make no
choice at all.