A quick online search reveals that we make an average of 35,000 choices per day. When to get up? What to eat for breakfast? What to wear? When to leave for work? What to listen to on the way to work? Sandwich or salad? Coke or Pepsi? Should I keep reading this or move on to something else? Some choices are easy, while others are agonizingly difficult. Even the Bible offers us the opportunity to make decisions. Choose this day whom you will serve. Who do you say that I am? There are so many choices to be made, most of them with real consequences.

The reading from Deuteronomy 30:15-20 begins, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.” We are given the sense that once again there is a choice to be made, an “either-or” “this or that” situation. Unlike with most decisions we have to make, in this case we are told what the expected outcomes will be. And not surprisingly, we are nudged toward choosing life. “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” That makes sense. Who would ever choose death and adversity? We should choose wisely and are told that choosing life will lead to life and long days. But can that really always be the case?

Those among us who do choose life and life-giving options also experience heartache, loss, death and adversity. Unfortunately, not all of the life choosing faithful have long and happy lives. In the same way that it rains on the just and the unjust, both prosperity and adversity come to us all. Elsewhere the Psalms tell us that even the wicked, those poor decision makers, will flourish for a time. So, do our choices really matter?

Yes, of course they do, and obviously some matter more than others. But I do not think they are the only choices that matter. And I do not think they always matter as much as the choice that God makes in loving us. I take great comfort in the hope that God chooses to create us, to love us, and to call us God’s own. What a blessing it is to know that God chooses to be with us and give us life. Therefore Beloved, may you always know the blessing that comes with the reality that even in the midst of death and adversity, God has chosen life for you. May it be so.