The small choices matter. One will reflect, plan, worry and generally count the cost when big decisions must be made, but it is the daily, moment by moment decisions that build the landscape of one’s life.
"[E]very time you make a choice you are turning into the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other."
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
The choice to take a break and spend time with my kids these past few weeks, walking away from the blogosphere and reconnecting with my children in the sphere in which they live, may appear to be a small choice but it has been one of significance. My youngest son just had a birthday and though we spent the day together, it didn’t feel like we truly spent time with each other. It wasn’t until two hours before worship practice that same day, that he came to me, with tears in his pre-teen eyes and said, "Mom, could you re-schedule band practice and spend time with me? Aren’t I more important than practice."
Ouch. I swore I would never let ministry and "my stuff" come before my kids and I had. So, I made the right choice in that moment and quickly called everyone, pushing practice back a few nights and demonstrating to my boy how much he truly means to me.
Daily choices make lifelong impressions on those in one’s life. To choose poorly may have ramifications years down the road. I may, through the choices I make not only be slowly turning into a hellish creature, but by my very decisions, I may be helping lead my own children in the same hellish direction. Conversely, when I am making decisions that are in harmony with God’s plan, I am showing those I love the most, my kids, how to love God through my choices and in turn I am becoming a heavenly creature, demonstrating to them how also to live like Christ, the only example of a truly heavenly being.
Today may not present a life altering decision, but one’s daily choices when weighed en masse, may in fact bring one closer or farther from the image of God’s Son.
*Originally posted on 7/18/10 at Caffeinated Thoughts
