We Can

Sometimes we can but choose not to.

My son, Will, asked his oldest sister to make his other sister some chocolate pancakes. She responded, “I can’t”. So he tried a more direct method. “Will you make me some chocolate pancakes?”

Again he got the same answer, “I can’t.”

To which I interjected that she can, but she chooses not to.

There are so many things in life that we can, but choose not to.

We can get out of debt.
We can lose weight.
We can forgive a friend.

But we choose not to. Maybe we don’t “choose” anything. We just let time pass and do nothing. That’s still a choice. Choosing not to do something is a choice.

Those choices can lead us to bankruptcy, high cholesterol, heart problems and loneliness.

To paraphrase Jeff Olson, author of The Slight Edge, we are a culmination of the thousands of small decisions we make over a lifetime. It’s rarely the big decisions that determine our fate because we make so few of those, but it’s the daily tiny ones compounded over the weeks, months and years.

Death by a thousand paper cuts.

I would rather choose to live the abundant life that Jesus came to give us.

Because I can.