You Choose,You Lose

The other day, my three year old granddaughter was playing with a wooden toy cookie set. She lined up twelve cookies on the baking sheet, and told me to pick one. Any one I wanted. It was up to me. When I did choose one, she took it out of my hand and said “No, you can’t have that one.” I asked her why, and here’s what she said. “Because I get to choose.” Then she promptly took the one I had chosen, and gave it back to me! She didn’t care which one I took, but the decision had to be hers. Our need to control everything starts very young, doesn’t it? Little Anne really tried to let me decide, but in the end, it was too much. She had to be the one to choose. We all have such a strong independent streak that makes us want to decide and control everything in our lives. In some people, this is so strong that they can’t even take good advice (see the book of Genesis). Eve just had to make the decision herself and do what she wanted. And look where it got her and everyone else. Because we’re all like her. Even at age three! We want our lives to be our own. But here’s the thing about that; our lives never did belong to us, they belong to God. Always did and always will. We cannot see in the future like He does. He put each of us here for a reason and He wants us to ask him about that. Eph 1:4 says “He chose us in Him before the creation of the world…” Extreme independence always gets us into trouble. The book of Proverbs tells us that “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” A child’s parent always knows what’s best for the child, and so it is with us and God. When there are decisions to make, we need to let go and ask The One Who made us. God created us with free will, so let’s choose not to choose, but ask him to do that for us. Proverbs 8:10 “Choose My instruction instead of silver…”