Chaplain's Corner

Crossroads – we all face them as we move through our lives. Sometimes the decision is easy, one alternative is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong. But other times the alternatives are not easy, both alternatives have merit, neither is morally wrong, these are the cross roads in our lives that tie us up in knots and sometimes leave us standing at the crossroad for a long time as we try to make the “right” decision.

Another thing about crossroads is that many of the choices we make set the direction of our lives and we never have the opportunity to back up and take the other fork in the road. For instance, when a young man and young woman decide to marry, once the vows are made, the direction of their lives is set. They can’t go back and get a redo. Even divorce is not a redo, for those people will never be the same again and the first experience with marriage has changed them forever.

In my work I often sit with people at a cross road in their life. Because these crossroads are not mine, I have no right to make the other’s decision. My work is to help people look at the options with as much objectivity as possible. A few months ago I sat with a couple who were faced with such a decision. It was a difficult one, one that held potential, regardless of which fork they chose. But each fork also held peril and uncertainty. We talked about alternatives, about different ways to look at the choices. We “reframed” the situation to see if a change of perspective would bring clarity. In the end we prayed and express trust in God to give them wisdom to make the choice that was best.

So many of us “need to know” before we can move forward. But because there is so much we cannot and do not know, “needing to know” can create enormous anxiety, leaving us paralyzed and incapable of making the decision before us. But we forget that indecision is a decision. That’s right, choosing to stand at the crossroads of our lives and do nothing is a decision. When we choose this alternative, we are yielding to circumstances and the decisions of others to make the choice, we are choosing to be victims of time, circumstance and others choices – ultimately this is cowardly.

Oh, please don’t be offended, I know this all too well because I have been a coward many times. Unwilling to accept the responsibility for my own life and decisions I have copped out and let the choices of others determine my course. However, this choice always leaves me feeling poorer and weaker.

As a Christian, I have also come to see that God is bigger than my choices. That God is able to work in, though, around and in spite of my choices. This belief doesn’t relieve me of the responsibility to make wise choices, to struggle and chose and live with the consequences of my choices. But this belief does comfort me helping me realize that I am not greater than God, that my choices cannot cancel his will and that His capacity, to include even my bad choices into his overall plan for myself, my family, my world, is infinite.

There are many today who don’t believe that God has this capacity. Many are teaching that God does not possess foreknowledge. That he can’t see the future as if it were the past. This belief would leave us with a much weaker, dependent and impotent God. This belief doesn’t at all square with the teachings of the Scriptures. Crossroads are hard, decisions are weighty, but by faith we can trust God to give us wisdom to make these decisions.