Making Choices

Decision making must be one of the biggest challenges in life. Some decisions are fairly easy to make - where to go to lunch, what movie to watch, what to wear... Though I must admit that even these choices can be agonising ones for some people. :) But some choices are more paralysing than others - what should I study, who should I marry, which job offer should I accept?
But what makes some choices more difficult to make than others? And why do some people find choices so difficult to make? And why does it seem so easy to tell others what choices they should make but so difficult when it is our turn?
I got into this reflective mode because I was struggling with choices last week and so were 3 people who called me to talk. Even as I sat listening to them struggling with the decisions, there was a voice inside my head telling me how obvious the decisions they had to make were. Yet this voice was absent when it was my turn.
I think the biggest fear or reluctance to choose comes from the fear of the consequences of the choice. That is it, isn't it? The fear of what will happen as a result of the choice I make. There seems to be an irrevocability about the decision, turning away from 1 path to choose another, knowing that you will now not know what path you would have gone down if you had chosen otherwise. Even something as simple as choosing what to wear can be time-consuming largely because of the consequences of that choice - will I look fat / thin, will I be over-dressed / under-dressed, will I fit in / stand out... Then of course some choices will have far more impactful consequences - what if I hate my new boss, what if I say yes only to get a better offer next week... And so we procrastinate, somehow hoping that the next hour / day/ week / month will bring us new news that would make the choice more obvious for us...
I have been thinking long and hard about this - the issue of making choices. Because I have felt deeply for those who have had to make choices - whether to accept a job offer? whether to stay in a relationship? whether to give a loan? And in my limited human wisdom, I of course have no answer.
Making a choice is the most powerful and most difficult ability God has given us. We are not animals living by instinct, powered by our need to survive. We have been created in God's own image, lovingly. And what supreme love must it be that said, having known us even before conception, having created every little finger and toe - choose for yourself whether you want to come back to Me and love Me. The Love that gave man the ability to think, imagine, create, rule the earth - and then stepped back and said "you have the freewill to choose to love Me". And so we stumble along, making choices in our own limited way, based on how we feel, what we fear, what we think we need.
How else should we choose? The Word says - according to God's will. Therein is the rub - what is God's will for me? The Word says - in a way that would honour God. But when neither one choice is sinful or dishonouring to God, then what? What is the answer? I do not know. This is all I have thought about so far... I will come back.