(Beginning today until mid next week, we are on a family vacation. There will be no posts until I return.)
This post is long and illustrates ‘the whys’ of making good decisions, sweetening the future, or at very least avoiding a trend that leads to disappointment, negativity and failure. . . . lessons for all of us!
From Jerry Sittser’s book ‘the Will of God as a Way of Life:
It is never too late to do the will of God because God’s grace abounds for sinners. But it is always too late to change the consequences of our past decisions. Life is hard enough as it is, full of risk, pain, and confusion. Why make it harder by continuing to make bad choices? We can do his will while being married to a prostitute (as Hosea discovered), entering a drug rehab program, or serving time in prison, but why dig ourselves into a hole if we can avoid it.
The way our past decisions shape our present circumstances resembles a game of chess. We make a move with a selected piece. Once we remove our finger from that piece, that move becomes irreversible. It creates a new configuration on the chessboard for our opponent. Her move, in turn, configures the chessboard for our move. Each move, in other words, creates the context for the next. We can make a series of bad moves and still remain in the game. But we will put ourselves at a disadvantage and find ourselves scrambling to survive. Why make a bad move if we have good ones available to us?
Robert Huntford’s, The Last Place on Earth tells the true story of the race to reach the South Pole between a Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, and the famous Englishman, Robert Scott. Amundsen reached the pole ahead of Scott in 1912, then made it safely back to base camp. Scott dies along with four of his companions, on their return journey. Huntford wrote his book in order to set the record strait, for it was assumed from the beginning that, although Amundsen won the race and Scott died, Scott was the real explorer, the heroic figure, and the true scientist. Scott was lionized after his tragic death, Whereas Amundsen was shunned, especially in Britain.
Huntford sought to demonstrate that Scott was actually arrogant and stupid. It was not bad luck that led to his failure and eventual death; it was his ineptitude and lack of preparation. At every turn he made bad decisions; yet until the very end he could have salvaged the expedition and survived. One misstep after another kept setting his crew back, depriving them of food, time and energy. He dug his men into a hole so deep that they could not get out.
Scott was too proud, however, to admit his mistakes and listen to advice. For example, he refused to pack the quantity of food that advisors had suggested he would need in case of emergency. He got lost because he did not listen to the advice of his men. And he kept blaming bad weather and sickness for their problems rather than admit he had failed. He justified himself and his decisions to the very end, painting himself as a hero and insisting he was the victim of forces beyond his control. This self-justification was evident when, just before his death, he wrote in his diary:
We are showing that Englishmen can still die with a bold spirit, fighting it out to the end. . . . The causes of the disaster are not due to faulty organization but to misfortune in all risks which had to be undertaken. . . . I do not think human beings ever came through such a month as we have come through.
Huntford suggests otherwise. “Scott had brought disaster on himself by his own incompetence, and throwing away the lives of his companions. He had suffered retribution for his sins. But he was justifying himself, finding excuses, throwing the blame on his subordinates.”5
Past decisions set the stage for present options. We can excel at stupidity, if we want to. We can sleep late, lose our job, commit adultery, gamble away our life savings, neglect our children, and deceive the closest to us. We can wait until the last moment before repenting of our sin. Amazingly, if we repent in sincerity, God will embrace us. But we cannot alter the consequences of our choices. So why put ourselves in a bad position if we can avoid it? Why make the game harder than it already is?
Take a college student. He frets about choosing a future vocation. His preoccupation distracts him so he neglects his studies and gets poor grades. And at the end of his sophomore year he finally decides to pursue a career in medicine. But his grades are too low for him to get into medical school, which only adds to his worries.
Or take a husband who spends years driven by a desire for professional success. His wife and family pay the price. She complains, but he makes excuses. Finally, she files for separation, thinking it will give him a wake-up call. But her husband assumes it is too late to restore his marriage and devotes even more time to his job. Years later, of course, he regrets the decisions he made as he realizes the treasure he lost in his wife and children.
As if playing a game of chess, these people made decisions that reconfigured the circumstances of their lives, each decision creating the context for subsequent decisions. Each bad decision put them into a more disadvantaged position, although never once were they completely devoid of good options. The foolishness prevented them from seeing the possible moves they could still make. They failed, in other words, to take advantage of the other options still available. They never saw how they could do the will of God that was staring them in the face. ~Jerry Sittser, (the Will of God as a Way of Life, Zondervan 2000, 2004) p. 146-147
