Choice and Consequence

I recently heard someone say that free will was God’s greatest judgment on mankind.  I couldn’t agree more.

We’ve all made some bad choices in life, and ultimately faced some kind of unpleasant consequences.  Hopefully we “learned our lesson”.  Unfortunately, for many of us there is something in our nature that prevents us from learning our lessons well enough not to repeat those same bad choices.

Think about it.  How many times have you done something that caused some kind of pain or misery, and sworn off ever doing that again…only to find yourself doing that again?

Personally, I’m tired of learning lessons the hard way – especially lessons I have already learned the hard way multiple times before.  But for some maddening reason, I often find myself walking down the same familiar paths that have only caused me trouble and angst in the past.

I suppose not everyone struggles with this particular affliction, but those of us who do are sorely familiar with the very popular definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  I am the first to admit that in these kinds of situations, I feel like a genuinely crazy person.

I know it’s not just me.  I’ve had conversations with many other people who knew exactly what I was talking about.  And we all ask the same frustrating questions.  Why do we do what we do?  What is it that drives us to these self destructive patterns?  Is the immediate gratification of this bad choice really so overwhelming that it causes temporary and selective amnesia of the all the past consequences?  Because that’s exactly what seems to happen.  Somehow our minds manage to extract the memories of the few pleasant moments associated with the past experience and keep the rest cloaked in darkness and obscurity.

There are, of course, some consequences so excruciating and enduring that one lesson lasts a lifetime.  Most aren’t quite so cataclysmic, and as time goes on the pain fades.  Then eventually, so do the memories of that pain, until the wrong choice is just that much easier to make again.

Jesus told a parable that I had trouble fully grasping for many years, but it came to mind recently and finally made some sense to me.  And don’t check out on me here – even if you’re not a Christian, Jesus still spoke with great wisdom and insight into the human heart.

When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first…” (‭Matthew‬ ‭12‬:‭43-45‬ NIV)

Whether or not you believe in “impure spirits”, this can still apply.  Think of them as symbolic of your bad habits and destructive tendencies, and you get the point.  Basically, we kick them out.  We clean ourselves up.  But they come back stronger than ever, and we’re worse off than we were before.

That was the part that always confused me.  After they were gone, the person cleaned up.  Why, then, would they be able to come back in?

Then it hit me.  The house was clean, but it was empty.  The trouble and its resulting miseries were gone.  Life was good.  Life was comfortable.  And therein was the danger.  The problems may have been gone, but nothing had taken their place.

I find a clean house to have a very calming effect.  It is peaceful, but if it’s also empty, the peace is eventually overtaken by loneliness.  It’s too quiet.  There is a sense of isolation that begins to infect the mind and the heart, and when the mind and the heart begin to wander, our actions quickly follow.

Compounding this problem is the fact that once the pain began to fade, no other deterrent had taken its place.  No security system was installed, no new locks on the doors and windows, no fence erected, and no motion sensing lights.

You’d think after getting all of that Trouble out of their house, this person would be hyper-vigilant, and take extra precautions to protect him(or her)self.  Not the case.

Maybe the person was in denial. Maybe they kept telling themselves that Trouble was a random, freak occurrence and won’t happen again.

Maybe the person was an escapist.  They didn’t want to face what had happened, so busied themselves with any number of distractions.

Maybe the person hated change.  They found their comfort and security in the familiarity of their surroundings and were afraid to chance them, even though they were unsafe.

And so the person left the clean house empty and unprotected. They justified themselves, or passed blame, or made excuses.  It’s not necessary, I’ll know better next time.  It’s because so-and-so left the door unlocked, there was nothing I could do about that.  I’m too busy to make all these changes.  I can’t afford it.  I don’t want the house to look like a fortress.  Etc, etc, and so on.

In reality, the cleaned-up house looks vastly improved to most passerbys, who are so happy to see all the progress being made.  But for Trouble, it is still an easy target.  And because it is cleaned up and emptied out there is room for Trouble’s buddies too.

I enjoy analogies because they allow me to examine the problem without looking straight on at the real problem.  It’s time to move away from the analogy.  It’s also time to move away from the “they” and “we”.  Time to get real.  This is about me, myself, and I.

Obviously this is not about an actual house.  It’s about my heart, mind, soul, and spirit – the non-physical aspect of myself.

As I read this parable and thought about its meaning, I began to see my problem more clearly.  I don’t mind cleaning up on the surface, but when it comes to doing the hard work of facing and attempting to fix my weaknesses, I mind very much.

I deny the problem.  I refuse to face it.  I feel threatened and frightened by the idea of change, so I do what’s easy and familiar and avoid any hard work.  Then I justify it.  I pass blame.  I make excuses.  It’s not necessary, I’ll know better than to make that mistake the next time.  It’s because so-and-so did what they did to me; I was a victim and there was nothing I could do about it.  I’m too busy to work on myself.  I can’t afford therapy.  I don’t want to look like a fortress.  Etc, etc, and so on.

And each time Trouble comes back, it comes back stronger.  The pain is worse and the consequences reach farther and deeper than the last time.

I was confronted with a painful consequence today still lingering from an old bad choice, and as I felt that familiar guilt and regret and sorrow stirring in the pit of my stomach, a thought crossed my mind.  How much more pain do I have to cause to myself and others before I am willing to fill up my empty spaces and start working on strengthening my many weaknesses?  What will it take?  Is this guilt and regret and sorrow enough, or will it take more?

I wish I could state with confidence that I have learned my lesson once and for all, and will never make such bad choices again, but that would be a lie.  The only thing I can state with confidence right now, is if I had the chance to give back my free will I’d take it.  But I can’t.  I will continue to face a multitude of choices every day, from the mediocre and mundane to the potentially life altering, and everything in between.

What I am starting to realize is that if I want to make the right choices down the road I can’t wait until I get there.  By that time it’ll be too late.  If I want to avoid repeating past mistakes in the future, I have to fix myself in the present, and not making that choice today will have untold consequences in the future.