Do you realize that the decisions you make today will have a great effect on your future? With this fact before our minds, we suddenly come face to face with the importance of all of our decisions. We have a responsibility, not only to ourselves and our families, but also before the face of the living God to conduct all of our affairs today, knowing full well that these decisions will also determine our tomorrows.
As an illustration of just what I am considering with you, consider school. If you are in high school, or even if you have already completed it, I can probably assume that at some time in your high school years you would consider dropping out. That decision whether to remain in school or to drop out will have far reaching consequences for you throughout the rest of your life.
Gary didn’t like the discipline and study that was connected with school work. So as soon as he was legally able, he became a dropout. The low paying job he managed to find didn’t seem so bad at first. In fact, he convinced himself that it held promise. He was able to buy an old car and have enough money to impress his friends.
As the years passed, however, dropping out of school turned out to be one of the turning points in Gary’s life.
Failing to develop his talents and intellect, he boxed himself into a line of work that was reserved only for the unskilled. The self-discipline and study he escaped in high school was taking a heavy toll later on.
A few years following Gary’s decision to quit school, his friends were graduating from high school, trade school, and college, and were entering the job market on a much higher level of pay.
The “wisdom” of Gary’s decision slowly began to change. Living on a financial shoe string, with a second child on the way, and saddled with a low paying job from which there was not much promise of escape, the foolishness of Gary’s earlier decision became clear.
We simply cannot separate our future from our present.
However, it is true that sometimes things happen to us which we do nothing to create and over which we have no control.
God does indeed lead us in the way we should go. But it is also true that circumstances come up in our lives because of prior action we have taken or decisions we have made.
Gary had chosen the easy way when he was younger. A few short years later, that decision was reflecting itself in the house in which he lived, the car he drove, the food he ate, the clothes he wore – everything. The price he paid for his shortsightedness was heavy. And he really had no one to blame but himself.
This is just one example of how decisions affect our lives. There are other decisions which are usually made when we are young that will affect us deeply in our later years. The decisions we make concerning marriage, our friends, and God.
If you make the right choice in selecting your life’s mate, you will add a great deal of happiness to your life. Make the wrong choice, and you will quite possibly end up hating your wedding day.
Before committing yourself to marriage, it is important that you stop, look, and listen. It takes more than love to make a marriage work. It takes character, values, discipline, and a spirit or self-giving, and an awful lot of give and take. Where these things are lacking in either one or both partners, a good marriage is impossible to create.
Shouldn’t a girl have some idea of how well her prospective husband gets along with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, his boss, his teachers, and his friends? Shouldn’t she give some thought to how his employer views his work? Shouldn’t she know what his moral standards and spiritual values are, not what he promises, but what they have already proven to be.
The wedding, though beautiful in itself, doesn’t change anyone for better or worse. What one is before the vows are exchanged, he will also be after they have been spoken. Dreamy-eyed young people who think love is all it takes usually wake up after it is too late.
To swear before God and His church to live with someone, to share your successes and failures, your hopes and dreams, your love and intimacies, your joy and pain, is a decision which shouldn’t be taken lightly, or made in haste, because there is far too much at stake.
Another aspect in our lives which will affect us greatly is the friends we select. There is just no escaping it, we will probably be influenced more deeply by the company we keep than by any other thing. What our friends are, we will also tend to be. To a very large degree, you can tell what a young person is going to be by the friends he keeps.
That is why it is so important to choose friends who demand a lot of themselves, who have high moral and spiritual values. Because quite really, they have a tremendous potential for either lifting us up or pulling us down.
You must also make a decision regarding Jesus Christ. The relationship that we have with Him will determine the real happiness and peace of heart that we have throughout all of our lives.
You may find yourself successful in work, your education or any other aspect of your life, but without Jesus Christ in your life you will have nothing.
We can look back in history and see that even though natural man seems to have it all going his way, he seems to have everything his heart would desire – fame, wealth, success in every human sense of the word; yet after his death, it soon becomes evident that he lived a miserable life in spite of what the world thought.
Scripture says that man does not live by bread alone. And nothing short of the presence of God will satisfy man’s deepest need.
God did indeed create us for Himself. He designed our hearts to be His dwelling place. It is for this reason, and this reason only, that we can experience real contentment, fulfillment, and peace.
May God grant unto us all the grace and wisdom sufficient to make decisions regarding our education, our marriages, our friends, and especially about Jesus Christ, that will be pleasing to Him. For these decisions will play a very large role in shaping the remainder of our lives.