Beginnings

In the beginning the choices, compromises, and alternatives seems so easy.  There are so many to choose from!  Everything might work.  Many things could work.  Even the unusual has potential.  How does one weigh between good and good?  Is there a preference for one choice over another if the outcomes seem to be similar?  In the end, are the choices between the best options merely artistic ones?
 
It is hard to know, or so it seems.  If I understood how far my words, actions, and choices would travel in my marriage, family, and friends I would have made them with a lot more consideration, thought, and care.  I was young and there were many things to choose from.  Everything was measured in the immediate.  The idea of five years or decades together was unimaginable.  The problem wasn’t my faith or trust with the others involved; it was all what I could see and comprehend.  In the beginning I could see today’s present, must less the future now at hand. 
 
To everyone at the beginning of a day and a time of choice, “God, the Master, The Holy of Israel, has this solemn counsel: ‘Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.  Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me—the very thing you've been unwilling to do.”  (Isaiah 30.15) 
 
The choice isn’t as fuzzy as one might initially perceive.  Self versus community, exploitation versus compassion, and justice versus mercy.  Each alternative is simply a variation on the options; “I can do it on my own” versus “I can trust God and live life in and with others”. 
 
The choice isn’t about the ends but rather the beginnings.  The options play themselves out in today’s dawn, shaping the moments you and I will inhabit during the course of today’s journey.  Your choice and mine is very important.  It determines everything.  You don’t have to make it alone.  Neither do I.  God is here, to help.  Yet it is our freedom.  We hold the key.