The Law of Choice

More than one person has said to me across my years as a pastor, “If only I could get my son to be responsible. He is making our lives miserable,” or “If only I could get my daughter to behave, I could have a little peace.” The thing I have come to see after hearing this kind of sentiment over the years is that a parent cannot choose how a son or daughter is going to behave. Our children get to make their own choices.

I have come to see “the law of choice” as one the most important laws in life. Paul referred to it when he said in Galatians 6:7, “People reap what they sow.” Each of us is responsible for the choices we make and for accepting the consequences that flow from our choices. That includes our children and grandchildren.

If I tell myself that somehow someone else is responsible to make me happy, I deny the law of reaping and sowing also known as the law of choice. I am wrong if I think I get to control how somebody else lives in order to make me happy. Nobody has to do what I want.

If my happiness depends on another person’s behavior, then that person has control of me. If you “make me angry” and therefore unhappy, then you have the ability to control my feelings at will. Anytime you want to, you can “make me so mad!” I am putting you in control of my emotions. That is not a good way to live is it?

This truth has come to mean so much to me that when I am talking to someone who is telling me about the destructive behavior of a son or daughter, I say, “Let them reap what they sow.” Don’t yell at them in anger to try to motivate them. They will not hear the lesson. Let them feel the pain of their destructive choice whatever it is. Pain that comes as a consequence of a choice is a much better teacher than you are. Your child may not listen to your words, but inconvenience and consequences will get through. C. S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures. God shouts at us in our pain.” This is how I understand what Alanon, the organization for the loved ones of alcoholics means by its slogan, “Let go and let God.” They mean you cannot be in control of another person’s behavior. Recognize the law of choice. If a person in your family is choosing to drink or to misbehave in any way for that matter – don’t rescue or make excuses. Let that person face the consequences of his or her own choices. That is the only way any of us can learn how reality works, how God works.