Choices

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

We Americans are very big on choices. We say life is all about choices.

The American Revolution was about the right to choose who could or could not tax us. The Civil War was about the right to choose or not choose to own another person, even though that other person had no choice in the matter.

Yet, we often pay more attention to who has the right to choose than to the actual choice itself.

And yet we have been warned: “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity” (Deuteronomy 30:14-14).

If life is all about choices, we Christians are called to be aware of the choices we make, and to pass that awareness on to the next generation.

This message is adapted from a stewardship devotion written by Robert Elliott for Women of the ELCA in 1998.