Choices

 Year 8-Day 247: Today, I am grateful for choices.

Today our principal included a clip from Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" in our staff weekly newsletter. Does anyone else remember that book from our college days at ONU? It was a powerful little book and I remember it being paired with watching "Sophie's Choice". Life is a series of choices. 

Frankl realized in a Nazi concentration camp that life can be brutal. A human's ability to act beastly by choice is shocking... until it loses the shock value and the abhorrent behaviors become the norm and somehow... acceptable. If we do not learn from our mistakes in history, we are doomed to repeat them. 

Frankl wrote these words"

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

He, also, said:

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is a power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." -Viktor E Frankl 

We can choose our response to any situation. Choice is our super power. No one can make us do anything. 

Even in a concentration camp with frozen toes, starving and faced with death daily, some survived. Those who refused to be broken no matter the beatings. Those who shared a bowl of food, no matter their own hunger. Those who huddled together for warmth instead of self isolation in lonely corners found a way to survive. In the worst of conditions, the best of humans still acted as salt and light as they helped others hold on with words of hope and whispered prayers. 

Frankl explains that no one can break our spirit... we have to surrender it. It is why those in military  Special Forces go through training that would break most  humans. It is as much about their mental strength as it is their physical training. They have to bring both to the table to complete Ranger or Seal training. 

I am reminded of one very special agent of change who arrived on Christmas more than two thousand years ago. He took on a skin that felt strange and humbled himself to human tools when he had the ability to set the stars in the sky and call each one by name. He came to save and to heal. 

Religious leaders hated him. Government leaders were suspicious of Him because he acted outside of cultural norms when he spoke to women as if they were treasured, he placed value on children and he encouraged people to treat their "neighbors" with kindness and respect... all of their neighbors. One of his best friends betrayed him. He was beaten, not given a fair trial and nailed to a cross while his mother stood nearby. Man's inhumanity to man is not anything new. 

Frankl's observations from the concentration camp echo truth when we observe Jesus on the cross. They didn't take his life. He gave it. He could have called 10,000 angels and Satan knew it, but He didn't. Instead, Jesus fulfilled God's plan to redeem the lost, unworthy and broken by becoming the agent of change when he chose to be the sacrifice for all. 

No, his life was not taken. He gave it up: 

"When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." -John 19:30

"Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last." -Luke 23:46 

The Truth. God's justice. The Way. I don't fully understand it, but I know that His ways are perfect. He surrendered to death so we might live freely. He wants us to choose Him, back... in love, not out of guilt or obligation, but out of the deep desire for a real relationship. 

"Choose you this day whom you will serve..." 

Today, I am grateful for choices.