Whatever You Want

I’ve quoted Mark Dohle before, using his blog “Talking To Myself” as a starting point for thoughts. On this one, between:

“We can make love to whomever we want, do whatever we want, for it is our bodies and no one can tell us what to do”. It was of course true, but the song left a lot out, that being that there are often unforeseen consequences that can lead to a great deal of suffering for those involved.

and:

When personal autonomy becomes the end all of life, then things really do fall apart.

I thought about a training session I took where the trainer started with the sentence:

You don’t have to do anything.

She went on to give examples – you don’t have to have a job; you don’t have to get up and go to work; you don’t have to pay your taxes. You don’t, even, have to eat. But – and that’s a huge but – you will pay the consequences. Not doing any one of those things will guarantee a life of need.

You may use drugs – but there are legal as well as physical consequences and an overdose can be lethal. There are a multitude of celebrity deaths with sufficient national coverage to confirm that truth.

You may be promiscuous – but there are emotional, physical and sometimes legal consequences. For women, consequences may be greater.

You may take what is not yours – again, there are legal consequences that seem to grow.

You may decide not to care about any of this – but there are always people who care about you.

The trainer explained so well that once we understand the consequences we make more rational decisions that in one class a student went home, told his wife he did not have to stay married, then filed for divorce. Apparently he determined the consequences were not as bad as his marriage.

Without consideration of the consequences, we are in great danger of doing harm to our lives.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 14:12 KJV)

Unless we consider consequences, doing what we want may lead to death. As a toddler, my son wanted to know what would happen when you stuck a bobby pin into both sides of a wall socket. Burned fingers were the consequence, but it could have been much worse.

It’s not so much that we want to teach others “what” to think, but “how” to think. We’re not trying to confine actions as much as to protect valuables. The most valuable things I’ve had in my life are my children. Teaching them to learn from other’s experience doesn’t mean keeping them from experiencing life. It means teaching them to understand each and every action has consequences.

Please seriously consider the consequences laid out succinctly in God’s word:

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18 KJV)