Better Choices and Greater Joy By Dr. Juan Harrison
Better Choices and Greater Joy
Looking back over our lives we can see a pattern. Our lives are a direct result of the choices and decisions we’ve made. Sounds simple enough. Everything from finishing high school, attending college, choosing a spouse, having children—every decision or action helped shape the quality of our lives.
Life-changing events come along. How we react has a lot to do with our overall happiness and outlook on life. Some folks go through life blaming others or just bad luck for the lack of overall success or general satisfaction in their lives. Others take the blows and refuse to let circumstances remove any joy or happiness in their lives.
Sometimes it seems like all we can do is focus on all the negative things in our lives. Death is finite; divorce is infinite. I’ve tried to remind divorcees of obvious things like those children and grandchildren that we’ve got would not exist if we or our children had not married that particular person. Look how God allowed David to take another man’s wife, have him killed, and have her bear a child, who died, and ultimately their son Solomon became a part of a family tree that yielded Jesus a thousand or so years later.
The song “God Bless the Crooked Road That Brought Me Straight to You” could summarize a lot of our lives. Short of “having to get married” as we’ve said about some shotgun weddings, most marriages occurred after someone said, “Will you marry me” and somebody said ‘yes.” Tonight, at dinner in a local restaurant we wished a young couple good luck after he got down on his knees and proposed. She chose to say yes. I wish I’d had him come over and put a few sugar packets under my table leg to stabilize it while he was still down on his knees.
Looking back can fill your life with regret. It’s done. Kaputt. Learn what you can from the choices you made and move on. The Devil can’t steal your salvation as a believer, but he wants to take the joy out of your life, that is if you chose to become a follower of Christ.
Every day we’re bombarded by hundreds or thousands of choices. Most of them may not be earth shaking but put them altogether and you’ve created or determined the quality of your life. In most cases it was you who was the deciding factor in your choices. We can blame others for our bad choices, or we can accept responsibility and use it as a learning experience. There’s not much good that comes out of looking back on the past. It’s spilled milk. Nothing is gained by loading our lives with regret. It produces a bitter crop. Point your face forward and take that step forward as you leave regret in the rear-view mirror. Start reaping the benefit of better, wiser choices.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
