Choices and HOW to make them?

A Time for Everything – Ecclesiastes 3 (NLT)

3 For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.
² A time to be born and a time to die.
    A time to plant and a time to harvest.
³ A time to kill and a time to heal.
    A time to tear down and a time to build up.
⁴ A time to cry and a time to laugh.
    A time to grieve and a time to dance.
⁵ A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
    A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
⁶ A time to search and a time to quit searching.
    A time to keep and a time to throw away.
⁷ A time to tear and a time to mend.
    A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
⁸ A time to love and a time to hate.
    A time for war and a time for peace.

Growing up in today’s world has our young (and old) people grappling with making choices that our great-grands, grandparents, and parents didn’t have to make.  For some, the decisions are made for them.  For others, culture and traditions define their direction, or circumstances dictate the roads upon which they march.  Today, our children have faced and will face the results of past mistakes and the choices unmade.  Our environment, this nation’s trillion dollar deficit, wars domestic and abroad, supreme court decisions, civil unrest and local community needs, etc. all have its present consequences and will invariably influence the generations to come. 

Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make

makes you.

John C. Maxwell

During a recent gathering, I was catching up with a sweet young female celebrating the last of her 20’s.  At 29, she was giddy; admitting to learning more about her interests, what drives her, her talents, and humbly acknowledged the hard truth that perhaps her parents did not prepare her as sufficiently as they could have because of their own limitations.  This Gen Y or Millennial was raised by Gen X’ers who were deeply influenced by their culture and family traditions.  She is, like may evolved young women, struggling to find balance with how she was raised in light of her current awareness and growth in today’s world.  This struggle often affected her choices. In my admiration, and perhaps naivete, I asked her, “I thought y’all were the woke generation?”  She replied, “We are.  We just don’t know how and what to do with all this woke-ness.”  In that moment, I was speechless but I thought to myself, she is representative of a group eager to look for guidance from the very generation who have predestined them to be in the predicaments they are in today. 

According to Kasasa, the breakdown of the age groups and generations assert one fact – People grow older. Birthdays stay the same.  Nevertheless, the questions we should be asking…are we learning anything and imparting wisdom authentic to our maturity to bless our future?  Are the choices we make motivated by the “now or never” concept?

Historically, we have repeatedly experienced the consequences of poor decisions, or unresolved issues. The famous quote by George Santayana, which states “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” means that people who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are going to make the same mistakes. A quick glance of our demographic makeup include generations of loved ones who left their benefactors the weight of their bad choices.

• The Silent Generation is the demographic cohort following the Greatest Generation and preceding the Baby Boomers. The Silent Generation was born from 1928 to 1945 between the ages of 76-93years (23 million “Silents” in the U.S.) as of 2019.
• Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. They’re currently between 57-75 years old (71.6 million in the U.S.)
• Gen X was born between 1965 and 1979/80 and is currently between 41-56 years old (65.2 million people in the U.S.)
• Gen Y, or Millennials, were born between 1981 and 1994/6. They are currently between 25 and 40 years old (72.1 million in the U.S.)
• Gen Y.1 = 25-29 years old (around 31 million people in the U.S.)
• Gen Y.2 = 29-39 (around 42 million people in the U.S.)
• Gen Z is the newest generation, born between 1997 and 2012. They are currently between 6 and 24 years old (nearly 68 million in the U.S.)
• Gen A: Generation Alpha starts with children born in 2012 and will continue at least through 2025, maybe later (approximately 48 million people in the U.S.)

Blame is a clever trickster. At its roots, blame is a form of fear that helps us avoid accountability for our lives.

Debbie Ford

One of my biggest pet peeves is blame; particularly blaming others who are not present to defend themselves.  I am an ardent supporter of ownership.  When something is presently amiss, spend the time owning the situation and embark on executing a solution.  Many will waste more time looking for whom to blame versus building resources to resolve the matter.  Take ownership. Take responsibility. Be of service. Be a part of the solution. Assist in providing encouragement and God-centered wisdom to our young people who ask. Suffice it to say, our young folks already know what’s up. I have heard it said, we are in the “it is what it is” culture. They do not want to hear who is at fault, they are ready for action to resolve it.

It is fruitless to blame my ancestors for what I am dealing with right now.  I dare say that many of the choices my great grands, grands, and parents made were based on how they had to survive in that moment in time.  For them, it was now or never!  It was either me or them!  Life-threatening circumstances motivate these types of decisions.  Freedom from oppressions including Jim Crow laws, bleak economies, or religious persecution are all circumstances birthed from sinful, poor, and hurtful beginnings and forced our ancestors to make split-second decisions.    

While the world is spinning mightily on its axis, you can make a stand right now to making wise decisions about your present condition while simultaneously passing on to the future hope for tomorrow.

• Identify the start point of the matter and the root(s) of the problem to provide perspective but nothing more. 
• Consider it is not always about you. Determine right now your choice to make sound and wise decisions about your current situation that will help someone down the road.  Be of service not in servitude. Choose to think about others before yourself.
• Pray to God.  Don’t communicate with your friends or family; they’re hurting, they are flawed. Call on Jesus Christ, who is All-knowing, Perfect, Consistent, Unmoved, and Faithful.  You may ask, “then why does God want us to pray if He already knows everything?”  Because it is about having a close and meaningful relationship with us. It’s like that new women or man in your life, you want to talk to him for hours and share.  God wants that too!  Get your heart right and watch what He does.
• Check your motives.  How is your heart motivated by circumstances?  Is your objective to get a better job so you can buy a $2,000 handbag or help a single mom with groceries?  Is your vote at an election about getting tax right-offs or elevating an elected official into office who has the interests of your community at heart to serve its constituency?
• Feelings are deceptive.  Check to see your intentions and feelings are aligned with what God desires.  Ask yourself…is what I’m feeling or thinking what God is telling me?  Does it go against His Word (the Bible)? If my thoughts are pure, selfless, kind, and good then we can be SURE that it is God’s will and not our own greed or selfishness.
• Do it – Walk by faith!  Often, we miss the fingerprints and signs God displays and we do the opposite or God forbid, do nothing.  We ask and pray for something and then we don’t act upon God’s responses.  I have missed it a lot, but I am becoming more in-tuned about God’s answers to my prayers. Believe it or not, He is showing us all the time.
• Thankfulness is contagious.  Live a life of gratitude and thanksgiving.  The gratefulness you demonstrate onto your family, friends, co-workers, etc. will return onto you. If you keep thinking about the many wise choices you’ve made, you will keep thanking Him for the many blessings.  Consequently, others will follow your lead and want to do what you do.
• Create a cycle of consistency.  One of the best compliments I have received were from young people who mimic what I do.  Take the time to be consistent, deliberate, and meaningful in your behavior towards others. It produces results.  For the most part, people want this too.  Creating this consistency in your life leaves little room for random, self-serving actions. This reliability is upstanding and pleases God.

For every action, purpose, need, or desire there is a time assigned for it to occur.  God orchestrates it that way.  Can you imagine getting something you were completely unprepared to handle?  Think of getting a driver’s license without taking the test or attending university without taking the pre-requisites for this level of education?  There is a time for everything.  Every morning, you have two things – a chance and a choice.  God allows you another blessing of the day to make each choice a gift to others.  Every good choice you make is a gift and celebrates the goodness God has allowed for your life.  Share the gift and watch how much power you can leave your future to inherit.

…now what, Linda