Each one of us makes choices multiple times a day, seven days in a row, week after week, month after month, and yes, year after year. Added up this makes for a huge number of choices made over a lifetime. It may be interesting to you to learn that some sources suggest the average person makes a minimum of 35,000 choices per day. If we stop to consider if we spend seven hours each day sleeping, while we remain choice-free, the tally for the remainder of each day’s time adds up to roughly 2,000 decisions per hour, or one decision every two seconds. For me personally, one of the ‘biggest’ choices I have already made today is, after stopping by a local yard sale to see if any items caught my eye, the owner of the home invited me to enjoy a free donut while there. You may ask what did I do? I responded graciously saying, no thank you, while thinking in my mind that I’ve recently had one heart-attack, and I’m really not looking for another one!
If the article in Physiology Today is correct, and assuming you spent about 50 seconds reading the first paragraph of this CRA Moment, you then have made 25 choices, while not recalling making even one decision during this period of time. To begin with, you made a first choice whether or not to continue on reading what’s before your eyes. And because you have, Jeannie and I say thank you for continuing to read the rest of what’s written.
We make routine choices every day of our lives. Choices such as what to eat, how much to eat, what to wear, where to go, where not to go. Choices as should we eat out and if so where do we eat. Which car to take, and should we buy gas and groceries before we return home. Choices! It’s beginning to look like we certainly must make at least 35,000 choices per day as has been suggested we do.
In the book of Joshua, chapter 24 and verse 15, we find these words of Joshua; “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua had already made his choice and now he had gathered all the tribes of Israel together in one place, asking them to make their choice as to whom they will serve. In the case of the tribes of Israel, Joshua also reminded them in verse 20 that if they were to “abandon the Lord and serve others gods, he will turn against them and destroy them, even though He has been so good to them.”
As we view the world around us, it seems to me that it’s not a difficult choice in choosing whether we will serve God, being people of prayer, the Word, and people who love and obey Him. After all, when we make a choice of seeing in those who do not, it only takes a few seconds to see in the tragic eternal lasting results of their choices! And who in their ‘right mind’ would choose to be of that crowd of people!
I saw it written by an unknown person, “Whom are you serving? This choice has eternal significance, so choose wisely!” And I choose to make those to be my parting words!
Blessings, Psalm 20:7 Dale & Jeannie