Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Gravity of Choices

I'm going to continue using favorite video games to illustrate gospel principles. An unofficial game week of sorts. So buckle up people because we're visiting the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Fallout 3 


The game takes place in Washington DC, at least what's left of it after the bombs fell and eradicated most human civilization. The main reason I love this game, and what I want to talk about today is that the choices you make, whether in game or in life, have impact. In Fallout, you are pretty much given free reign as to what you want to do. 

You wanna shoot zombies in the face? 


do it. 
Do you wanna fight Super Mutants, big monsters that carry assault weaponry? 

You bet your cerebral cortex you can do that!
In fallout, you are free to do whatever you want. However, each choice you make has an impact on how the game unfolds and how certain characters in the game will treat you in the future. You can crash, burn, pillage, and steal, but be prepared to deal with the consequences. There is a certain gravity to everything that you do. 

I feel that there is a great misconception among the general public that the day where we'll have to make a big decision is far away. That the choices we make today aren't that important or don't have any impact. The simple reality is that every day we make decisions that will impact our lives further on down the road. We are constantly making decisions that will make our lives different or have an impact on other people. 

Back in Fallout, there were decisions that I made that didn't seem to have any impact, like what kind of gun I wanted to carry that in the beginning didn't really seem to be all that important. Fast forward an hour or so when I find myself in the depths of an abandoned subway, being chased by swarms of radioactive zombies through the old metro tunnels. Suddenly a sniper rifle doesn't sound like such a good idea. 

We may not need to worry about what sort of high power weaponry is going to get us through the day, but we make decisions that impact how our days go. There seems to be an never ending list of decisions to make. Some choices are easy to make because they either camp out in the white space, others in the black, but there's an obnoxiously large amount of decisions that seem to hang out in the grey areas where there's  a mix of good and bad with every decision. Suddenly we're forced to consider the long term consequences of what we choose to do.  

Fortunately God has given us things such as scriptures, prayer, and modern prophets who help us know what choices need to be made. The difference between the good and wrong has been made known to us and God expects us to follow through. It's our ability to make choices that is perhaps the greatest gift that God has given us besides his son, so of course He's going to help you make the right choices. However, that also means that we have a responsibility as his children to actually USE this gift. We simply cannot sit in an empty room, unwilling to make ANY choice because we fear what the consequences might bring us. Nor can we expect God to make the decisions for us because then we would miss out on the greatest opportunities of growth. 

There's no doubt that he'll be there to guide us when we need it, but there are other choices where we won't have that clear guide, we'll simply need to make the decision and see where the consequences take us. The time to decide isn't tomorrow. It's today. Character, who we are as people, isn't given to us, but rather it is earned.  

No comments:

Post a Comment