Healing Choices

by

Pastor B.J. Knefley

I am often perplexed by the choices of others and their subsequent consequences and wonder if they will ever learn. Perhaps it is because I am older and wiser, but I don’t remember making some of those foolish choices that I see people making today.

Are times that different? Or is there something in the water?

With the influence of the Internet and social networks, we all have access into the lives of others like we have never had before. Yet it doesn’t appear that we have really improved on our social connections but rather we have drawn further apart. Someone once said that we don’t have the friendships that we once had, but rather we have acquaintances. We don’t stop in homes to visit; we stop by their Facebook page to drop off a note. Rather than being focused on others, we have become focused only upon ourselves and what we want or what makes us happy. Is this perhaps the reason for the poor choices that we see people making today? Is it that we have lost the idea of community and even though we say that we belong to various Internet communities, are we really connected at all? Church used to be a place where people lived in community but that has even changed today. Gathering people together more than an hour or two a week is next to impossible. We’re all too involved in other things.

When it comes to the idea of healing choices, we are thinking of those choices that bring healing rather than destruction. We all need to learn that our choices are not made in a vacuum. In other words, our choices have a ripple affect to all of those around us. The choices we make have impact upon the lives of others. When we make our choices with the realization that we have responsibility to others, our choices will take into consideration those same people. In part, we all need to learn that we need each other and that I can bring healing to my family and friends by the choices that I make when I consider them in my choices. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said that we needed to love our neighbors as ourselves. Think about it.