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Do You Have A Decision To Make?

Here’s something to think about the next time you are faced with making an important decision.

Our English word “decide” comes from the Latin word “decidere,” which means “to cut off.” How does cutting off something relate to making a decision? Well, think about it. A decision occurs when one option among two or more has been selected. Suppose you are driving on a trip and you get hungry. At that point you have several options: ignore your hunger and keep driving; pull off at the next exit and look for a snack to hold you until you can get a real meal; or find a restaurant where you can actually eat real food. Making a decision then is simply the process of eliminating options until you have one that you like—in effect, “cutting” them off one by one until you have one left. The one that is left is the one you’ve decided upon. But if you choose the restaurant, then you have another decision: which one will it be? Will it be fast-food, something you can grab and eat in the car? Or will you go to a restaurant with a buffet, or one with a menu and table cloths? Again, by “cutting off” the options that have no appeal to you or which do not fit into your situation or schedule, you eventually arrive at a “decision.”

Of course, life consists of a long series of decisions, many of them much more important than picking a restaurant. Education, career, marriage, children, leisure, finances—and of course, eternity. Each of those consists of eliminating all other possibilities until you are left with one. That one is your decision. That one is your choice.

Some of the options may be very good ones, which makes the decision-making process a little more difficult. It is vital, when we have several good choices, that we make a distinction between what is good and what is best. This particular choice may be a very good one, but is it the best one?

On a church marquee not far from where I live are these words: “Life has many choices, eternity but two.” When a person is faced with making the choice for eternity there are really only two options. Eternal pain, darkness and separation from God—or light, life, and joy in the presence of the Father forever? “Cut off” or eliminate everything that doesn’t appeal to you, and the one that’s left is the choice you need to make.

Have you made it? No? Then your decision today is “when will you do it?” Today, tomorrow, or next week? Never? Of those options, the BEST one is today, because not a single one of is guaranteed tomorrow. And if you are thinking “never” then remember this: NOT to decide IS to decide. If you don’t consciously make a choice today, you have already made your decision—and it’s not heaven.

--Rocky Henriques, www.timothyreport.com