January-March
We make choices every moment of our lives. “What will I wear? What will I do? Who will be my friends? What profession will I choose and whom will I marry?”
The story is told of a young couple who had just married and were very poor. The husband told his wife, “Honey, I’m going to leave home and look for a job. I will be away until I make enough money to give you a more comfortable life. I only ask you one thing: Be faithful to me while I am gone, and I will also be faithful to you.”
So the young man left and found a job with a rich farmer. He told the farmer, “Let me work for as long as I like, and when I must leave, release me from my obligations. I do not want to receive my salary now. Save it for me until the day I leave.” The young man worked for twenty years without a vacation, then he told the farmer, “Please give me my wages for I’m going back home.”
The farmer replied, “Okay, we made a deal and I’m going to stick to it, but first let me make you a proposal. You can choose to receive all the money you earned or accept three pieces of advice. Think what you want to do and answer me in the morning.”
The young man thought about it for two days. Knowing that his boss was a good man who cared for him dearly and who would wish the best for him, the man said to his boss, “I want to take your three pieces of advice.”
The farmer then told him, “First, never take shortcuts in your life. Shorter and unfamiliar paths can cost you your life. Secondly, do not be curious about what is evil, for curiosity may be fatal. Thirdly, never make decisions in times of hatred and pain. You may regret it and be too late.”
After giving him these three pieces of advice, the farmer said to the man, “Take these three loaves of bread along with you. You may eat two of them during your journey. Wait to eat the third one together with your wife when you get home.”
So, the man, who now was no longer so young, left the farm. He had been away for twenty years from home, and the wife he loved so much. As he walked the first day, he met a traveler who asked him, “Where are you going?”
He answered him, “To a very distant place which is more than a twenty-days’ walk down this road.”
The traveler advised him, “This way is too long, I know a shortcut that will greatly shorten your trip.”
The man was happy to take the shortcut when suddenly he remembered the first piece of advice from his boss. Quickly he returned to the original path. When he arrived to the next town, he found out that the shortcut was actually a planned ambush.
After a few more days of traveling, the man found a motel where he stayed for the night. In the middle of the night he awoke with a startling cry. He was about to get out of his room and check what was happening when he remembered the second piece of advice of his boss. He went back to bed and fell asleep.
In the morning, the manager asked him if he had heard the shouting and he answered yes. Then the manager asked him, “Were you not curious what was happening?”
“No,” replied the traveler.
The manager told him, “Good for you. Had you been curious, you would have been dead. My son had a madness crisis and started screaming; if any guest comes out, he kills the person and buries the body in the backyard.”
After many days and nights of walking, at last he saw his house among the trees. Smoke was coming from the chimney. He walked a little closer and then noticed the silhouette of his wife. The day was getting dark, but he saw that his wife was not alone. He walked a little closer and noticed there was a man lying down with his head on his wife’s lap, and she was affectionally caressing his hair.
When he witnessed this scene, his heart hardened with hatred and bitterness. He decided to confront and kill his wife and the man without mercy. Taking a deep breath, he hurried on. Just then he remembered the third piece of advice, “Never make decisions in time of hatred and pain. You may regret it and it will be too late.”
The traveler stopped and thought what to do next. He then decided to sleep that night outside by his house. The next day he would decide what to do. He woke up at dawn and thought to himself, “I’m not going to kill my wife or her lover. I’ll go back to my boss and ask him to take me back. But before I do that, I want to tell my wife that I was faithful to her.”
He went to the door and knocked. His wife opened the door and recognized him. She threw herself on his neck and hugged him affectionately. He tried to push her away, but he could not. With tears in his eyes, he said, “I was faithful to you and you betrayed me!”
His wife was astonished and said to him, “What? I did not betray you. Much to the contrary, I waited for you these twenty years!”
He asked her, “And who is that man you were caressing last night?”
She told him, “It’s our son! When you left, I discovered that I was pregnant, and today he is twenty years old.”
The wife introduced their son to the husband and he embraced him. He told them both his whole story while his wife made them breakfast. After a prayer of thanksgiving and with tears of joy, they thanked God that their family was reunited again. The father cut the last loaf of bread to share with his family. As he cut the bread, to their surprise and joy, there fell out a plastic bag with full payment for his twenty years of work!
The young man Moses also had to make a very important choice in his life. He was the adopted grandson of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Moses was much beloved by the king and all his subjects. In fact, the king was training Moses in the highest military schools of Egypt to become the next pharaoh. But one day, Moses made that fateful decision to walk away from it all—his adopted family who loved him, his military training, his position in the court of Egypt, and his future job as pharaoh. Why? “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25).
Why and how did Moses exchange the scepter as the prince of Egypt for a shepherd’s staff? “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:26, 27). To which reward was Moses looking forward? “Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” Moses valued the lessons of hardships he learned with the sheep in the mountains. To him, they were worth far more than all the wealth of Egypt.
Moses was not discouraged at his present circumstances. He looked positively toward the future when he would have eternal life. “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Joseph is another young man who made the right choice. He had the important position of managing Potiphar’s home, property and finances. God blessed his efforts and all of Potiphar’s possessions increased as a result. But when Potiphar’s wife came to tempt him, Joseph said firmly, No, “how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). Like Moses, Joseph made the right choice to stand firm for God and principle.
What about people who make wrong choices? Adolph Hitler is an example of where a bad choice can lead. As a boy, Hitler sang in the church choir and contemplated becoming a priest. But when he became a man, he made light of religion and spread death across Europe.
Somewhere between the time he was a boy and became a man he made a choice. That choice was for evil and led to the destruction of about 15 million people during the Holocaust. On April 30, 1945, Hitler went to his suite in an underground bomb shelter and shot himself. At the same time his wife took poison and killed herself.
Have you known Christians who go to church and still make wrong choices? Balaam was one of those people. He was a prophet of God when Balaak came to him and asked him to curse the Israelites. As soon as he was given the opportunity to make money by betraying God’s people, he chose to sell his faith in God and the truth for gold and silver. When he made that choice, he became the prophet for the devil. “Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness” (2 Peter 2:15).
The path Moses and Joseph took led to joy, satisfaction, and a life of usefulness and eventually eternal life. The path that Balaam and Hitler chose led to hatred, disappointment, and eternal death.
Over two thousand years ago, three men were hanging on three crosses. The man on the cross on the right side had to make his last choice; the man on the cross on the left side also had to make his last choice, and the man on the middle cross was the best choice. (Luke 23:39–42).
On Sunday night, October 8, 1871, the famous evangelist, Dwight L. Moody preached to the largest congregation ever in Chicago. His key text was “What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:22). At the conclusion of his sermon he said, “I will let you take this text home and think about it during the week. Then when you come next Sabbath, we will come to Calvary and decide what to do with Jesus.”
Then Ira D. Sankey, his song evangelist, stood up and began to lead in signing a hymn. While the congregation was singing, there was a rush and roar of fire engines passing by the church. Before morning came, much of the city of Chicago was in ashes. Dwight L. Moody, could never forget to his dying day that he gave the congregation one week to decide what to do with Jesus. “I have never since dared,” he said, “to give an audience a week to think of their salvation. If they were lost, they might rise up in judgment against me. . . . But I want to tell you of one lesson that I learned that night which I have never forgotten, and that is, when I preach, to press Christ upon the people then and there and try to bring them to a decision on the spot.”
Dear youth, what will you do with Jesus today?