Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1903-03-21
CHOOSE.
God Does Not Impose Arbitrary and
Unreasonable Commands, But
Sets Before Us Facts.

The Bible does not impose upon us
arbitrary and unreasonable commands.
1t sets before us facts, and invites us
to decide with enthusiasm for one al
tentative or the other-for God will
have no lukewarm service. In view of
the awful temptations and the noble
opportunities with winch every iiie
abounds, it says TO every man who has
ears to hear: Choose" A glance at
any concordance, says the Sunday
School Times, will show how often
the Bible presents us with the
thought that God makes choices.
Choice is one of the highest ex-.
ercises of the rational nature, aud
the divine command to choose
such a command as was urged by Moses
and Joshua, by Christ and Paul, by all
teachers and leaders who have felt
the everlasting Importance of life's
issues-such command can dis
honor no man. 1t assumes that we
are rational beings, who were not
made to be driven, but who can exam
inc and decide for ourselves.
The power to choose, which lifts us
exercise all too seldom. Most lives are
neither conspicuous successes nor
brilliant failures, just because men so
seldom arrest themselves and make
some deliberate resolve. The mistake
which hlights so many lives is, not that
they make a definite choice of evil, but
that they never choose at all. Too sell
dom do men look alternatives honestly
in the face. They do not choose, they
drift. You could almost count up on
the fingers of your two hands all the
men you know who have ever made
some great and solemn choice which
has seriously shaped their subsequent
career. How many could tell why they
are in this trade or profession, and not
in that; in this church, and not in that?
We are where we are, often, simply be-
cause our parents, or some other of the
powers that be, put us there So far.
that Is right; we must receive our start
in life from others. But, as we love
God and our own souls, we must not
stand there; we must learn to choose
for ourselves. and not drift into the
other world with the helplessness of
the beasts that perish.
NumherlesS things of the highest
moment were determined for us before
ever we saw the light. We did not
choose our parents, our family. orr
country, our language, our religion.
our social station, the sphere within
which our friendships are possible or
by which our education is limited.
We stand, as it were, within a charmed
circle, across which we often feel we
cannot step. If we move at all it is
only, like the prisoner, to walk to and
fro and round and round. Yet God has
SO made us that it is in our power to
choose the greatest things. Our path
may sometimes seem to be tracked ont
Tor US before ever we begin life's Jour
ney; we may seem to be sternly COM
Passd about by necessity, yet Gods
word to every man is Choose" And
woe to him who stops his ears and al
lows himself to be borne onward
every day nearer and nearer to a goal
which he has never once looked
straight in the face!
Nor need oar choice be a blind one.
1t Is 10 be made in the light of our ex-
perience. God asks no man to choose
without giving Him facts to deter
mine his choice. We cannot look over
our little lives, still less over the ex-
panse of history, without choosing for
God, IL we choose at all. Do you not
see how your life has been nodded bv
Divine fingers? how the disappoint-
ment which few years ago you felt
sure would crush you has opened IN
for you other treasures of undreamed-
of happiness, which would have been
forever sealed had God then given
you your own foolish wayP Do you
not feel that the bereavement which
seemed to bury your own heart in the
grave Of your dear dead has brought
you after many days peace. and
even quiet joy, which you never
knew before? Your past is written all |
over with the finger of God; it is in
the light OF all that that you are TO
make your choice. The God who bids
you choose is the God who helps Won
to choose, who
From our mothers arms
Hath blessed US on our way
With countless gifts OF love
And still 81 ours to-day" -i.