Magical Options

There is a three year old in my life who recently had an enormous lunchtime meltdown while we were together. After sitting him in my lap and trying a few different things to resolve the series of tantrums (spoiler, it was only truly resolved by a nap), I finally gave him three options for moving forward. I said “You can choose whichever option you’d like, but if you don’t choose, I will.” Naturally, his first response was to beg me for a fourth option that was magically everything that he wanted and nothing that he didn’t. After it became clear that no magical fourth option was forthcoming, he changed tactics again. This time, he told me that he wanted me to choose for him, but that it was important that I choose the option that he wanted anyway. Had he told me which option that might be? Of course not! He wanted me to choose, but he wanted the result to be that he would feel perfectly content with my choice and find nothing difficult or distressing in it at all. 

While of course I did not laugh at the time, I found this incredibly funny and relatable. Isn’t this exactly what most of us are like with God, after all? When we have a difficult decision ahead of us, one that involves discernment and weighing various imperfect ways forward, we often spend an awful lot of time yearning for a magical option of our own. I can’t count the number of times when my prayers have centered on this. And don’t get me wrong, it’s great to ask God for what we need, and every once in a while, a magical option will come through, but more often than not, we find ourselves needing to make an imperfect choice. We rail at God that the world isn’t exactly suited to our needs, and that we may need to compromise. We bargain and wheedle, and sometimes we give ultimatums. Surely God can’t expect us to move forward with such plainly insufficient options available to us! The pull of that longing for a non-existent ideal is so strong, and so tempting. I know for me, it can become very easy to live there. 

Another thing we so often try when we have difficult decisions to make is to foist the decision onto God. “Tell us what to do and we’ll do it,” we beg. But sometimes God seems silent, or gently returns the decision making to us. Or sometimes, perhaps even worse, we do get an answer. I tend to be very sure I want God to tell me clearly what the next step is, but on the occasions when there has been a straightforward directive, I often don’t like the answer I get. In asking God to choose for me, what I’m actually asking is for God to resolve all of my unanswered questions, to give me absolute peace in the choice I’m making, to remove all obstacles and compromises that may stand before me. Typically, I don’t just want the next small decision to be made for me either. I am asking for a detailed itinerary, one that removes all doubt and ambiguity, one that gives me total confidence and certainty in every step I take. 

Unfortunately, it is rare that either of these paths are fruitful. For better or for worse, God chooses to trust us with our own lives and the choices we make in it, even in this broken and complex world. Perhaps, as was the case with this small sobbing person, there isn’t actually a correct answer, one that will smooth away all of the angst of the moment. Or, even if there is a better choice, perhaps we’re meant to find our way there ourselves, building our discernment skills, growing in trust, leaning on God in prayer, and taking the next small step forward.