The other day, I was talking to someone who seemed a little bit depressed. I asked why. His response was along the lines of, "I have to do such-and-such today."
I didn’t say it, but inside my response was, "No, you don’t." You see, there are very few things in life that we actually have to do. Breathing would be one. We cannot, simply by an act of will, make ourselves stop breathing. We can hold our breath for a few seconds, maybe a minute, but eventually our bodies will force us to start breathing again. In a similar vein, we cannot, by an act of will, make our blood stop flowing or our hearts stop beating. These are things we have to do.
Everything else is pretty much a matter of choice. We can choose to do things, or we can choose not to do them. It’s our choice.
Our choices have consequences, of course. For example, I can choose to not write a sermon for Sunday. I can even choose not to show up in church Sunday. But there’d be consequences if I made those choices. The congregation would complain, word would get to the District Superintendent, maybe even to the Bishop, and I might not be able to be a pastor any more. Still, I don’t have to do those things. I do have choices.
Maybe that seems like an insignificant distinction to you, but I find it an important one. To me, it’s important to remind myself that I am choosing to do the things I do. When we feel like we don’t have any choice, when we feel like we have to do things, we start to feel trapped. That can lead to depression and burnout.
On the other hand, when we remember that we are choosing to do the things we do, we remind ourselves of the reasons we chose to do those things in the first place. We remember the joy and satisfaction that can be found in what we do. We remember that we truly love what we do. And we remind ourselves that if, for some reason, we get to a point where we can no longer feel those things any more, we can choose to do something else. It’s our choice.
I suspect that may be part of the reason God gave us free will. God would not have had to do that, you know. God could have created humans in such a way that we had no ability to choose whether we were going to believe in God or not. God could have created us in such a way that we had no ability to choose whether we were going to serve God or not. God could have created us in such a way that we had no ability to choose whether we would love God or not. God could have done those things, but God chose not to.
Maybe part of the reason for that is that God knew that, if we had no choice but to believe in God, and serve God, and to love God, we’d eventually come to resent it. We’d start to feel trapped. We’d start to feel depressed and burned out. Maybe God knew it was important for us to have the ability to choose our feelings toward God, even if that meant that sometimes we’d make choices to ignore or oppose God. I have said before that God does not want our grudging service, God wants our loving service. Without the ability to choose, there might not be the ability to truly love.
God does not want us to feel forced to go to church; God wants us to go because we find something there that helps us. God does not want us to feel forced to give; God wants us to give because we believe in giving. God does not want us to feel forced to serve; God wants us to serve because we want to, because we love God and love the people God created.
We tend to resent the things we feel forced to do. We tend to enjoy the things we choose to do. Just as Joshua said, we need to choose whom we will serve. We don’t have to serve God. There will be consequences if we don’t, but we don’t have to. We are not trapped into it. We have choices.
What’s your choice going to be? What’s mine going to be?
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