Choices and Consequences

You can make you own choice, but you are not able to choose the consequences of that choice.  Realize that in any choice you make, you are also choosing the consequences that come with it, both the known and the unknown.

I’ve seen this connection between choices and consequences in my own life, and helped others see the connection when I can.  It came to mind while reading an updated edition of a book I have reviewed here before: Hurt 2.0 by Dr. Chap Clark.  Click here for previous review.

Clark has the background and research to lay out in stark relief the sense of abandonment, confusion and pain that characterizes the lives of our adolescents in the United States today. I can’t help but think though that their pain, is in large part a consequence of the choices made by the culture of adults.  Clark paints a picture of the “modern family” that we have chosen:

Of the thirteen girls on (my daughter’s competitive dance) team, all from the high school where this study took place, more than half came from divorced families. Of the parents who attended, one forty-year-old mother brought her sixty-seven-year-old live-in boyfriend, and a fifty-six-year-old father was accompanied by his thirty-one-year-old girlfriend, while his ex-wife brought her live-in boyfriend. It is indeed a new day when it comes to what the word family means. For the adolescent who is trying to hold on to something, at times anything, that is stable and safe, societal mores and parental choices concerning divorce, adult sexuality, and the trend for unmarried parents to cohabitate while children are in the home has had a noticeable impact. In the course of my study, I found that for many kids this effect has been powerfully destructive, and the pain and betrayal they experience are real. The reshaped definition of family has been used to affirm and legitimize even the most casual of liaisons, and this change represents a monumental shift in social history. The adolescent is left to discern how to handle the conflicting messages related to home, stable relationships, and internal security—all while trying to figure out how to survive lengthened adolescence.  (Clark, Chap. Hurt 2.0; Baker Academic, pp. 16-17)

His research then documents the consequences.  It’s a difficult read, much like getting a cancer diagnosis from your doctor, then reading the medical journals and literature to discover the nature of the disease and your new future.  “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,” said the LORD of his people Israel.  (Hosea 8:7)  I think we can see ourselves and our situation in this text as well.

I live and minister daily in the midst of the rubble of people's broken lives.   The pain is real, and I have no desire to throw stones or to pile on. I'm thankful that Christ Covenant is growing into a safe place for the battered of all ages to find hope and healing through the powerful grace of the Savior.  Even when consequences are painful, we are not left simply to regret our choices and "pay the price."  There is grace offered to us by Jesus, and our lives are ransomed from regret and pain.

Still, as we all face choices in life, I want to raise a warning flag or two:

There is a way that seems right to a man,

but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.  (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)