“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.”
Joel 3:14
The most precious gift God gave human beings is the power to make a choice. Among all the great gifts God blessed man with, the greatest of them all is the power to make their own choices. International Human Rights has also upheld this divine gift as an inalienable right to make choices.
The power to make choices inhabits our mind and when we apply willpower to make a choice it is called a decision.
God did not want us to make uninformed decisions, so he always made sure that we had access to resources of knowledge to enable us to make decisions according to our choices.
Deuteronomy 30:15 “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.”
Genesis 2: 16 And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
No one will ever say that they had no choice. The ultimate price is death, and that is the last thing that could happen to anyone amid other choices in life.
We always have choices available and our part is to make the decision on which choice to take or follow. God on his part knows the right decision that we should take and he also makes it clear for us the danger that lies ahead if we choose otherwise.
Deuteronomy 30:19 “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”
One would ask, why didn’t God make us only do the right thing to avoid evil consequences, and the answer to that is that God never wanted to create robots. He wanted to create people that would out of love choose to do the right thing and not out of compulsion.
Can you imagine a scenario where you are invited to a party and you have just one choice of food served to you all the time whereas there are other types of food on the table? Definitely, you will nurse a feeling of unfair treatment, injustice and deprivation. On the other side, if you are allowed to make a choice of the food you want and then out of the whole different types of food on the table, you see your favourite delicacy and you know that the other foods are not good for you, when you make that choice, you will feel so satisfied and happy with the party host. Because no one forced you to eat a particular food, there is a feeling of freedom and satisfaction inside of your belly.
That is what God in his infinite wisdom designed for man. He wants people who would voluntarily decide to do the good thing and he was also ready to allow them to turn back and correct their wrong decisions as much as they have the time and opportunity.
So, everything we become in life is a result of a particular decision made on our behalf or made by ourselves along the way in the journey of our lives.
When we are young until our adolescent age, our life is majorly controlled by the decisions of others, but as soon as we turn adult, from the age of 16, we are faced with choices that can make or mar our future.
We can decide to continue in our education or stop along the way. We can decide to be obedient to our parents and guardians or be obedient to friends we met in school or on the streets. We may decide to live a holy life or live as a hooligan. We may decide to wait till we marry or start sleeping around. We may decide to take up one job, trade or the other. We decide to be a traveller, a night clubber, or anything we choose to do.
At the age of marriage, we may decide whether to marry or not. We may decide the type of woman or man we want to marry. We may decide whether we want wealth over virtue when we choose who to marry. We may decide how we get married.
After marriage, we may decide whether to be faithful to our spouses or to cheat on them. If we don’t revere and honour our marriage, we may decide to engage in adultery and practice deceit. We may decide to have a child or not.
After we have children, we may decide whether to be responsible to our family, spouse and children. We may decide to be careless parents and allow our children to be without any care.
Within some time, sooner or later our decisions begin to yield results, and the fruits of the decisions we made and the choices of the seeds we sowed begin to manifest. We then become whatever we have put into our lives in ways of decisions.
The good thing about life is that at any point in our life, as long as we have a breath of life in us, we still have the chance to make decisions for the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next year or years and for our eternity.
Whatever bad decisions we have made in the past, we have the opportunity of today and now to make another decision that will bring a better result in our future both on earth and afterlife.
The choice is still ours to make the right choice or to remain the way we are today. Wrong decisions always lead to bad results no matter how they may come. But God has a way as well, of turning bad results into better results depending on the realisation of the earlier bad decision and taking action towards making a good decision.
How to make the right decision:
Making the right decision, especially the one that pertains to our destiny. This is because as the verse of the bible in Joel 3:14 revealed, there are always multitudes in the valley of decision. It is easier to make the wrong decision because most people follow the easy way, but it is always in a valley, bad circumstance that we make a life-changing decision. The force of destiny is always pulling us towards the wrong choice that would divert, delay or destroy our destiny.
However, the spirit of God in us always lets us know the right decision at every given time we are in the valley of decision. Your little voice will always whisper to you the right choice to make, but it is left for you to make a decision on the choice to follow.
As I explained earlier, God always makes available resources of knowledge that serve us a la carte of choices to make in life.
We know what is good and what is evil. As the Bible revealed, even though God had warned Adam and Eve against eating fruits from the tree in the middle of the garden when the serpent tempted Eve, she knew the right choice to make which was to refuse to eat the fruit, but she chose to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit.
On the other hand, when Joseph the son of Jacob was faced with temptation from the wife of his master, he had an easy way out which was to sleep with his master’s wife. But Joseph chose to heed the voice of God that told him that it is wickedness to covet his master’s wife. He therefore made a choice and decided to reject the devil’s offer. That single decision changed the course of his life and made his destiny come to fruition thereby saving the entire Israel and fulfilling the plan of God.
Usually, we always know the right thing to do, and choosing the right thing to do is the right decision.
So, the decision to do what is right is always the right decision to make. As a child, doing what is right according to the direction and instruction of your parents.
As a young adult, we know what is right to do. In the school, we know what is right to do.
When we are at work, we know what to do whether to work wholeheartedly or to be doing eye service.
When we want to marry, we know that it is good to choose good over evil. Are we just greedy or willing to follow virtue?
In marriage, we have the choice to do the right thing in marriage, avoid bad friends and bad influences, avoid infidelity in marriage and every other principle that guides marriage.
In keeping relationships, and doing business with people, we know what is right.
In fact, we always know what is right, and in some cases, we may not be aware of the whole picture and we make a wrong decision,b but sooner or later we become aware of the whole picture and then it’s time to make the right decision.
Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
By Obinna Ejianya (9News Nigeria)
