We are like children in need of God's help in every single daily decision. We don't know the implications of our choices because we are finite. Only our eternal God and Father knows where each road will lead.
Isn't it reasonable that we should ask Him which road to take even in our minutia choices many times each day? Often our choice is between an easy, smooth road, an ordinary one for ordinary folks, a crooked one, a rough one, a road with many ups and downs, a more difficult but right road. One road may be a detour. Perhaps there is a road less traveled but one which carries great joy and blessings.
Some choices are determined for us by virtue of the road we chose early in life or by our present constricting circumstances. Our youthful choices put us on some roads from which there is no turning back. Our direction and destiny is largely determined by previous choices and carries with it more detailed subsequent choices until the end of life.
Choices are needed because God is so generous to have created us with free will.
We are not robots to perform at His command or puppets on strings whom He controls without our will. He apparently created myriads of angels specifically to fulfill His assignments regarding His people. They assist us “in all our ways,” but we still choose our ways. Nor does God demand that we love Him—He wants us to love Him with our free will, although He first loved us while we were yet sinners.
Why is it that our choices are tainted and bent in the wrong direction? We suffer the result of Adam's sin and are born with wills that are prone to make wrong decisions. So, how to resolve this clash of wills? Ultimately, God wants us to freely choose to do His will, then our will melds as one with His will. We freely obey Him and find magnified joy in doing His will.
By the time we are toddlers we are already good at practicing our free will choices. Our flawed original nature rears its ugly head even in an innocent, tow-headed, sweet child. We want to do things “our way” and are prone to do things to please our own ego. We start on life's journey with a blemished capability to choose the right road by ourselves.
We have momentous choices to make in our youth—friends, education, marriage, child raising, career, religious faith—each of those decisions catapult us in permanent directions. Mid-life carries its own specific decisions—possible job loss, marriage breakup, financial decisions, declining health, wayward children, eventually the trauma of retirement. Advanced years bring many excruciating decisions which are often made for us by others—health issues, accept chemo or not, financial insecurity, relocation to care facilities, divorce or abandonment after a lifetime together, death of spouse, neglect from family members, hospice care, dementia.
How shall we make the right decisions? Which road shall we take? One never-fail spiritual choice overrides all other principles and applies to wisdom even in the details of daily choices: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5,6). That applies to the Isaiah 45 inevitable rough roads being made smooth too.
And to the ones where we made wrong choices and took the wrong road? Yes! God can write straight even with crooked lines.
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