This weekend, I was thinking about choices and if/how the choices we make can affect God's will for us. We have been "blessed" with free will. I put the word blessed in quotation marks, because sometimes our selfishness, greed, stubbornness, etc can lead us to make choices that just aren't the best. However, despite our choices and their outcome, God continues to love us. When you think about it, that's pretty awesome. Sometimes the people in our lives don't always do that. Sometimes we experience scorn, ridicule, and alienation when we make choices that others don't understand or agree with.
In the world, there are circumstances that affect our choices. For example, if you're offered a job, you have some time to think about whether to accept the job, but you're typically not given an unlimited amount of time to do so. Clearly, the job you choose can have a long-term effect on you, and there is not really a way to determine if this job will be best for you months or years down the road. When my car was totaled in a wreck several years ago, the other person's insurance company only gave me a certain amount of time to have a rental car. Buying a car is a big choice. Clearly, we often have finite windows of time to make choices that can affect us for a long time.
In my thirtysomething years on this planet, I've made "good" choices and "bad" choices. Sometimes the choices that seemed good at the time have had positive outcomes and sometimes they've had negative outcomes. Sometimes the choices that seemed bad at the time have had short-term positive outcomes (but usually long-term negative ones), and sometimes they've had negative outcomes from the beginning.
With all of this being said, I have to wonder how I know when these choices are in line with God's will. How do I know that I am truly following God's will? I think about this most often when I've made decisions that seemed to be in my best interest in both the short- and long-run & then these choices have fallen apart.
I don't expect any of you readers to have an answer for me, as I think this is probably something that all believers struggle with. I really want to get these thoughts out of my head and into words. I pray that God will continue to guide me in my choices, that I will choose the paths that will benefit me long-term and that I will make the right choice instead of the popular one.
