We Have a Choice to Make

It’s that time of year again. Some of us will choose to indulge in the life of pumpkin spice. Others will choose to indulge in the life of apple spice. Then there are others who will choose to stay with what they always consume. The point is, we always have a choice. It is my hope and prayer that we will begin to choose love over hate. 

If we choose for someone to control us and take over our lives, then that is our choice, and our lives are miserable. If we choose to hate instead of love, then we have chosen a miserable lifestyle. If we choose to trust fate instead of having faith, then we will become miserable with what our future has become. We are not robots, even if the powers in Silicon Valley think we are. We have choices, and we all need to choose to be better and to choose to do the good. 

We all have made the excuse that we just had to strike someone with our words, actions, or fists because they were so out of place with their words, actions, or fists. The truth is we have a choice on how to respond to those that harm us. We have a choice on how to respond to posts on social media that trigger us. We all have a choice on how we live our lives. We all need to begin to make better choices. 

We all have heard our parents or other adult leaders say, “Make good choices!” Many times when that phrase is used, most young people take it as that they need to choose to not get into trouble, but let’s take that phrase a bit further. Maybe we can start using that phrase to stop trouble from spreading or from even entering into our lives. 

It took me years to realize that I had to stop blaming others for my life journey. I made the choices I made. If I was unwise and believed their words, then it was on me. I had a choice to make. I have a choice of how to respond when someone harms me. I can sit and wallow my entire life, or I can get counseling and begin a new life with new insight and have understanding for others who may have my same hurts. I have always had a choice. Once I started making those actual good choices, I became a person with peace, joy, and even happiness. 

We all need to think before we respond, either in person or on social media. We always have a choice, even when something triggers us. We need to remember that everyone has his or her own problems. They see life the way they do because of the circumstances that they have been given. We can get to know them better. We can ask them questions. Once we attack, we made our choice to disrespect and show hate instead of love. 

We need to love those who think and believe differently than us. It’s easy to sit back and judged someone’s thoughts and beliefs and have the idea that ours is the pefect way to life. People who think and believe differently than us have done amazing things for the community, or the country, or the world. We have to stop seeing everyone who believes and thinks differently as the enemy. When we only see them as the enemy, we have chosen hate instead of love.  We have a choice. We need to choose love. 

Jesus had a choice. He could have called on legions of angels to strike down those who were nailing him to the cross. He chose to sacrifice his life so we could live. He chose love instead of hate. We need to follow the one who is perfect. We have a choice. We can choose to follow Jesus or we can choose to follow Christians and religious leaders. We have always had a choice. The choice of life and love is to choose to follow Jesus. The choice of death and hate is to follow Christians and religious leaders because in their human state, they will not choose to die for our sins. 

We have a choice. We have always had a choice. This year, 2020, has been a difficult year for many people for many reasons. We have a choice. We can heal with love or we can hurt with hate. May we all choose love and begin to heal others and ourselves. We always have a choice, so let’s go make good choices!