Choices!

Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Psalm 25: 4-5 NIV

How is that working out for you? We would all have to admit that, occasionally, our answer to that question is not so great. We all make decisions based on desires, needs, and wants. Most decisions are easy and quickly forgotten. Do we eat at Chick-fil-A or McDonald’s tonight? Am I going to wear red or blue to the party? These questions are important in the moment, but they will not make the headlines of our life stories.

Andre Francois Raffray, a 47-year-old French notary, made what should have been the best financial decision of his life in 1965. French law allows someone to purchase property from a person who can continue to live there and receive a monthly payment for the duration of their life. Raffray bought the apartment of 90-year-old Jeanne Calment, who seemed to be in declining health and had no living relatives. Raffray assumed she would die within a short time and that the apartment would be his.

Month after month, Calment received her check from Mr. Raffray, then year after year. She received it regularly until her death in 1997 at age 122. Unfortunately, Mr. Raffray died in 1995 at age 77 and never got to take possession of the apartment, which had sounded like a perfect financial deal. The bad decision did not end with his death; under French law, his widow had to continue making payments to Mrs. Calment.

Jeanne Calment would live to become the oldest person in recorded history, dying at 122 years and 164 days. As Mrs. Calment said of the decision, “In life, one sometimes makes bad deals.”

How do we end up with unintended consequences from our decisions? No matter how well we plan, anticipate, and research, we still do not know everything. Solomon understood this well and gave us timeless advice in his writings. “Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn away from them. Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.” (Proverbs 4:5-6). Mr. Raffray never anticipated that he was making a poor decision. He based his decision on sound financial planning and proper legal procedures. Yet he failed to consider something entirely outside his control. Mrs. Calment would become the oldest living person. Very few of us start out intending to make a bad decision; Mr. Raffray sure didn’t. Yet we do, no matter how thoroughly we plan.

What wisdom do we need? Solomon quickly realized that if he was ever going to succeed as king after his father David, he needed help. Humbly, he sought God’s help and prayed, “I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (I Kings 3:7-9).

Solomon understood, as King, that every decision had major ramifications. Though his story was not perfect and he made many mistakes, we can learn from his legacy the need to seek and learn from God. Solomon began well; his first request was for wisdom rather than power, riches, or success. “The Lord was pleased…Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have you asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.” (I Kings 3:10-12).

We can be thankful that Scripture records failures along with successes because we can know that even in our flawed decisions, there is hope and grace. “We’re tempted to measure our circumstances on the world’s scale, but God’s economy uses God-sized scales. His story is so much bigger than ours, and one day when we see it in totality, we’ll have all the answers we desire.” (Laura Story, When God Doesn’t Fix It).

Bad decisions are inevitable, no matter how hard we try to get it right. We have limited vision and insight, and even then, we often wear blinders for what we want and the outcome we want. This is why learning to pray, “LORD, not my will, but your will,” is a critical step in our motivations. Proverbs 3:5 offers us a safety rope to hold on to when making decisions. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Lysa TerKeurst writes, “If I’m trusting myself, I will stare at all the possible ways I could fail. If I’m trusting God, I will stare at all the possible ways He’ll use this whether I fail or succeed. God’s promises are not dependent on my ability to always choose well, but rather on his ability to use well.”

It is so much easier to make decisions looking backward, but we do not have that luxury. Only God knows the final outcome and how to fix our messes. Mr. Raffray most likely regretted his choices, especially after years of paying Mrs. Calment. Likewise, I doubt most of us are happy with all our decisions in life. Yet we have to remember that, though it is easy to criticize our failures in hindsight, God offers us a better way: grace over condemnation.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:9-10 NIV).

God is great!