Today's title for our FTM is a question that sounds pretty much like a simple one to answer, when given the choice the answer would be a pillow of course! Seems like one of those no-brainer type questions huh? You would think so, matter of fact I don't believe I know one person that has a rock lying on their bed just waiting on them for tonight's restful sleep. I mean that would be ludicrous, wouldn't it? Who in their right mind would ever choose a rock over a nice goose down pillow? Well if my question seems a little simplistic to answer then let me change things up a little and let's see how simple the choices are. What if I changed my question to would you rather breathe like your lungs will never fill enough with clean, fresh oxygen, or would you prefer to gasp for a breath to the point that you feel like you are going to suffocate? Easy question again? Yes but if so, why do men and women around the world pay over $5.00 for a pack of cigarettes? It's pretty safe to assume that people who choose to smoke don't want to end up gasping for each breath, but it is also a common understanding that smoking leads to emphysema, lung cancer, and at best shortness of breath due to damage to your lungs. How about heart attacks? How many of us would choose to have a major heart attack over a healthy heart that beats strong and pumps blood easily through our veins and arteries? I'm guessing there again that not too many would choose major heart surgery for blocked arteries. So if that's the case why do so many of us spend our mornings, days, and evenings piling on excessive calories that end up blocking our arteries and making us prime candidates for heart attacks. Why are not only our food choices bad, but we complicate our situation by choosing to come home from work and plopping down on the couch instead of making efforts to be active and stay physically fit, helping ensure that our hearts are getting the exercise it needs to remain healthy and fit? Well like I said if life's decisions were as easy to maintain as choosing between a rock or a pillow to sleep on I don't think we would have quite the number of people suffering from health matters which to a great extent are the product of our own personal choices.
In life the very choices that appear to be the easiest to make are often the very same choices that send us spiraling down into a hole that we many times can't seem to crawl out of regardless of our want or desire. Hard to believe, but many people are asked each day pillow or rock, and they consciously choose the rock. Not just any rock, I'm talking craggily, pointed, hard as a rock, rocks. We're not talking nice, smooth river rocks here my friend. Why? Why would anyone choose a rock over a pillow? Why would anyone choose to smoke and increase their chances of cancer over being smoke-free and maintaining a quality standard of health? Why would anyone choose to do drugs, steal something that doesn't belong to them, or make the decision to end a relationship just because it is getting a little tough and the bumps in the road are getting a little bumpier? This list could go on and on, but it all boils down to this. We make our choices based on what we believe is going to be the best for us at the present moment in time.
Nobody would choose a rock over a pillow because more than likely they wouldn't sleep at all tonight. In that same mindset, if you knew that the decision to smoke a cigarette would cause you to get cancer tonight, then not too many of us would make that decision at all. If we knew that the recyclables we are throwing in the trash today would lead to water and land that we would be unable to use tomorrow, I would imagine the number of people recycling would pick up tremendously. And if we knew that the life we are living today could wind up costing us our lives for eternity then.... Oh wait we do have an insight here! Jesus shared this forewarning with His disciples in Matthew 24:43 "If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." The answer is we don't know when our time here on earth will expire, so we have to be ready every day. We have to choose the pillow over the rock today, tomorrow, and each and every day of our lives. We have to choose to serve, give, lead, submit, sacrifice, and then give, serve, lead, submit, and sacrifice again each day. You make the choices in your life, do you choose the pillow of everlasting love or the rock of strife and contradiction?
Coach Carter
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