Donuts or a banana? If I eat the donuts, I’ll enjoy them but soon feel blah from all the sugar. If I eat the banana, the potassium will help my sore muscles (I’ve been getting back into running lately). I might not be able to pick how I wanna feel later, but I can pick what I eat (which is pretty much the same thing). I chose the banana!
I like the quote “You can choose your sin but you can’t choose your consequences.” That’s often true, but sometimes we CAN see the end of our choices ahead of time and pick.
In Exodus 9, God tells Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go and gives him a choice: Obey or face another one of the 10 plagues. Exodus 9:4 says, “And the LORD shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children’s of Israel.” Even though God laid out the options, Pharaoh sadly made the wrong choice. God protected His people but allowed Pharaoh to face the consequences of his wrong choice.
A lot of people wonder how a loving God could ever send a person to hell, but He doesn’t. He lays out the choices very clearly in the Bible and gives each of us a choice to accept Him and His offer of salvation or reject Him. The consequences are the result of our choice, not God’s choice.
A lot of Christians choose to reject God’s daily plans and boundaries and then get upset when situations don’t end well. We should never blame God for the consequences of our choices. It’s much better to make the right choice to begin with.