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Decisions and Bowls of Soup


Every single day demands more decisions than you can count. Almost all of those decisions are simple and require no significant effort on our part. In fact, the overwhelming majority of them are automated. You’ve given thought to them days, months or years ahead of time so that when you’re presented with more than one option, there is already a kind of circuitry in your thinking process that allows you to choose with very little mental energy.  Should I go to work today? Of course I should! I decided long ago that I need to eat, and I need my family to eat, so I decide to go to work today whether I really want to or not.  What am I going to have for lunch today? I’m going to have a turkey sandwich, an apple, and a yogurt. I won’t have time for anything else, and it'swhat my budget allows this week. Most of the time, this decision process runs in the background, and we don’t even have an awareness of it. Other times, those decisions require a little more deliberation. What am I going to wear today? Well, I’m meeting the company vice president at the conference, or I’ll be in the same class today with that pretty new girl I’ve been wanting to ask out, or the boys expect me to meet them for a round of frisbee golf after church – I better wear the red tie, or the new shirt that accentuates the color of my eyes, or the comfy shorts that keep me cool and allow for athleticism. Sometimes our decisions are the result of a rote process – we’ve done the same thing over and over again so many times that we’ve created a rut on the path that our choices follow, and so our thoughts follow that same path every single time without any deviation because they’re flowing in a channel we’ve carved out of the road – like, should I get the Big Mac or the chicken nuggets, so you choose the Big Mac because that’s what you always choose.  


But there are other times when we’re faced with decisions of great importance, and we either fail dramatically and end up wallowing in the consequences of a wrong decision, or, more often, we struggle with making a decision and end up frozen in a kind of gridlock in which we ruminate over and over in an endless loop of over-thinking. Both of those situations are the result of not having identified our values, assessed them, and then properly placed them into a hierarchy.  This was the terrible fate of Essau in the bible. He came in from the field hungry one day, and famously sold his birthright as the first born to his younger brother for a bowl of soup (Genesis 25:26-34). Essau had not identified the value of his birthright. He had not assessed it against other values, and so threw it away even though it had infinitely more worth than a bowl of soup.  Most of us do not regularly fail that dramatically.  However, whenever we give into some temptation, whether it is eating too many donuts this week, or lingering with the sexy co-worker discussing things we know we shouldn’t, it is because we have not properly clarified and prioritized our values.  We give into the lure of pleasure, or the false tranquility of avoiding discomfort and sell our peace for a worthless sinful moment that destroys some of the future’s real value.  We’ve valued pleasure more than what is right. 


But most of the time, our battle is with making a decision between two choices that seem good. The cause and pain of this struggle is that we haven’t prioritized our values.  Whenever we are met with two “good” choices, one of them will have more relevance to a godly hierarchy than the other. Assessing, adjusting, and maintaining that hierarchy is best done through regular bible study, regular prayer, and regular frank discussions with wise people who help keep you grounded in God’s word and will.  When you are doing these things, you are less likely to become confused, and less likely to sell something of fantastic value for a bowl of soup. 

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