Choices

I like to have lots of choices. I love places with big menus, or buffet meals, where I can take time choosing my favorite thing to eat. I enjoy carrying a wide variety of music or movies on my iPod, so I can indulge my momentary whim when I have some time to watch or listen to something.  


On the other side of the issue, I strongly dislike times when I have only one choice. I do not like to be told there is only one option in a given situation. In my heart, I tend to rebel against that option simply because it's the only one offered to me - while I secretly try to look for some other option I might take.


That's my nature. And I suspect it's really true of all of us as human beings. Don't you do it too? We have only one choice of weather at this moment - how often do you or I complain about it? How often do our kids complain about the dinner food made available to them? How often do we gripe when we are called into a "mandatory" meeting at work? How often do we complain about a decision that another person has made which now affects our own lives? How often do we bristle when we are told we MUST do this or that?


I wonder if this is why so many people have trouble with the biblical concept that Jesus is the only way to get to God. We read about Jesus's being the only way, like John 14:6 ("I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.") and Acts 4:12 ("And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."). Still we might secretly think, "Maybe there is another way. Surely God wouldn't be so exclusive as to give us only one choice."  


Dear reader, God made the world, and God has given us only one way to have a relationship with Him. The only choice we really have is to choose His way or not choose His way. We can bristle all we want; we can look for other options; we can rebel against such an exclusive arrangement. But this doesn't change the central fact: there is only one way provided for salvation. To be honest, it is an act of amazing grace that God would give any way of salvation at all, so I have personally chosen to embrace that offer. I choose to follow Jesus Christ.


What's your choice?