The Real Choice--by Linden Malki

We always have had choices; we were created with a choice--to recognize our Creator or not. We can use our abilities to do good for God, for our neighbors, for ourselves--or not. If we think we can be happy on our own, it will usually be just beyond our grasp, because those things that we expect to make us happy fall short. God knows what we need: to recognize His authority and live by His guidelines. It started with one: to have the patience and discipline to leave one thing alone.  I suspect that He knew that our human curiosity and would sooner or later bring us to want to know that one thing--the cost of being in charge of our own destiny. 

We may have a memory of being God's creatures;  on one hand reaching out for God and with the other hand reaching out for our own desires. We come into this world with nothing and leave it with nothing. What we gain in this world is a product of what we are given and what we give. We are all responsible for each other; we can take care of each other or take advantage of each other. In the end, what we have accumulated of the world is left behind, and what we have learned and grown in the Spirit is what we take with us. Whether or not what we have to offer is worthy of His presence is up to our willingness to accept His grace and mercy.  

Even when we know what God asks of us, we cannot do it on our own. We can try to do everything right for our own credit, and it's not worth what we expect--because our strength is not enough.  We can give God orders--demand He do what we think He ought to do, and we don't bother to wonder what He thinks, which is what actually counts in the long run. We don't know nearly enough to run the Universe. We can ignore Him completely, and show up with nothing that counts in the long run. We can create a god of our own, which doesn't have the power to accomplish what we expect. 

"What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could “be like gods”—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." *

Or we can throw ourselves on His love, power and mercy, and be amazed at what can happen. It usually is not what we expect, not always comfortable (in fact it probably isn't, in the worldly sense). We can appreciate the wonders of the Universe in a whole new way, when we know its Creator.  The more we learn about the world, the universe, and all its creatures (including ourselves) the more awesome and complex it proves itself to be, real beyond anything that could have just "happened" by accident.  

*C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity