“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. 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, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (ESV)

Choices. We make 100s or even 1,000s of them every day.

Some large. Some small. Some active. Some passive.

We make so many choices that often we make them on autopilot using our default preferences and attitude to make the call. What if though, instead of going through life on autopilot, we took the time to hit pause and really examine our default settings?

If God has set life and death before us, then don’t all choices, large and small, lead one way or the other?

Whoa! That’s a deep thought if you’re reading this first thing in the morning. And a big wake up call for any time of day.

The biggest choice we’ll ever make, the choice to believe upon Jesus Christ as the Son of God and accept Him as our Savior, that choice quite clearly has an eternal life or death outcome, but what about the smaller choices…like what to order at the coffee counter? How does that kind of choice equate to something as heavy as life or death decision making?

Dear heart, consider this:

In the greater context of Deuteronomy 30 and God’s guidance for us, it really doesn’t appear to matter whether you buy a Starbucks’ pumpkin latte or a 99 cent cup of joe at the gas station. BUT God – our great Teacher and Friend – God still wants us to think about the choices that lead us to that coffee counter and that order and the cascading impacts of our choice.

You see, how we treat the cashier or the barista, that is a life or death matter. Will an interaction with us show that person the life and light of Jesus Christ or will drain the light from their day with our words or attitude?

Do our weekly coffee habits of $5 a day at Starbucks cause us to choose to be less charitable overall? After all, $35 a week adds up in the budget. Is there a child or a family on a “needs adopting” list that we can’t be life and light to because of our spending choices?

Did we drive three miles out of our way to buy coffee at one gas station because we’re avoiding the morning cashier at a closer gas station due to a longstanding grudge or hurt that we refuse to resolve? Have we chosen, through our inaction, to allow death and darkness to fester in our hearts and in theirs?

I know most of you are thinking, “Seriously, I haven’t even had my morning coffee yet. This is too deep for this early.” or “It’s too late in the evening to be thinking this hard. I’m tired and now I want coffee.”

BUT God – love those words – God assures us that it is never too early or too late to consider our choices so that we may choose wisely.

Throughout the Bible, Jesus Christ is referred to as Life and we know that He chose to die so that we might live and not just live but live life more abundantly. Bringing all this back around to the beginning, I must ask myself, and encourage you to do the same, “What is my default setting? When I am on autopilot, am I like Christ, bringing life and light? Or, am I like death, bringing sorrow and conflict and despair with my actions, words, and attitude?”. That may be a tough question that takes day long observation and reflection.

As I think on that, I must also ask myself, “How can I fine tune my default setting to be more like Christ so that my autopilot choices lead to life?”. This one’s a lot easier to answer: the Word, the Word, the Word. God has left everything we need to follow Him and reflect Jesus in His love letter to us. Dig into the Bible, talk to God about it, listen to Him, meditate on His words, apply them to our lives.

In a world where I can choose pretty much anything, I choose life. What will you choose?