Based from multiple sources on the Internet, adults make roughly 35,000 ‘conscious’ decisions each day. With children, we’re looking at 3,000 each day. Time magazine stated in an article that the number is in the thousands. Actually, there is no way to measure how many decisions we make each day. There are just too many variable factors among us humans.
Do you realize that 35,000 ‘conscious’ decisions per day equals just under 40 ‘conscious’ decisions per minute (subtracting eight hours daily for sleep) which is just under 2,200 ‘conscious’ decisions per hour?
When I was working I encountered many people who just did not like to make a decision. Maybe they were afraid of making the wrong one. I can understand that, simply because we’re not all the same. Our personalities are different. Our gifts and desires are different. Anyway, even with the timid, they are making thousands of ‘conscious’ decisions a day and just haven’t realized it.
So … over a lifetime we make about a billion ‘conscious’ decisions give or take so many million. We all make decisions and some are more important than others. There is one that has an eternal consequence. I’ll come back to this one.
A very interesting exercise for us all would be to think back over our life about some of our decisions. “Since I made a certain decision I am now in this particular situation. Where would I be if my decision had been different?” I’ve done this many times, and my guess is that many of you have too.
Some of my decisions have worked out so well, all I can do is just thank God over and over for being so gracious to undeserving me. For example, I made several decisions in the past that brought me to my current situation of being so blessed in my marriage. Getting here involved changing my resident location and changing jobs, among many other large and small decisions I didn’t even consider at the time. Little did I know that God was leading me during the whole process. I also made wrong decisions, but He forgave my ignorance and returned me to the correct path.
There are also decisions I have made in my life I wish I could undo, but that is impossible. Can anyone relate with me here?
(Let me say something very important about bad decisions. If it is a decision that needs to be confessed to God, then do so, don’t repeat it and move on. Put it behind you and don’t look back, as did Lot’s wife. Satan will want you to keep bringing it up in your mind, so he can keep you from being useful for the Lord. Don’t let him. Forget it, and go forward with God.)
Decisions are very important. The wrong one can get us killed on the highway, put us in prison for life, destroy a family, and one can even damn our soul to hell.
Abraham made the wrong decision with his wife Sarah regarding her handmaiden Hagar, and the world is still dealing with the mess.
David made a wrong decision with Bathsheba and it cost her husband Uriah his life. It also brought down much grief upon David and his household.
Judas made the wrong decision concerning Jesus and he will pay for eternity in hell for rejecting the very one he followed for three years.
Out of all the millions and millions of decisions we make in a lifetime there is one I said I would come back to, and that is our decision about the Son of God, Christ Jesus.
We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Because we are all corrupted with sin our sentence is an eternity in the lake of fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Romans 6:23; Matthew 25:41). Why an eternity, because unlike the animals, mankind is an eternal being. Once we are born, we will live forever, first in this earthly body, then in a new body designed for either Heaven or hell.
Joshua told the Hebrews, “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15)
Which will we serve? We have to make a decision. Will it be our gods of today; humanism (love of self), materialism (love of money), and hedonism (love of pleasure) or will it be the one and only true God? Each of us has to decide. There are no exceptions.
Someone may say, “I’ll just remain neutral,” but that won’t work either, because Jesus said, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” (Matthew 12:30)
Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if out of all the millions and millions of decisions we make in a lifetime, we get this one wrong? Many of our decisions we make in life bring heartbreak, suffering and sorrow while upon earth. Many will bring us happiness while upon earth, while still others won’t matter too much in our earthly sojourn, but the decision of what we do with Christ will go with us for an eternity. This is the only decision that reverberates all through an eternity that never ever ends. What am I going to do with Jesus?
Many have made the wrong decision and have nothing to look forward to but the judgment of an eternity in the lake of fire that burns forever. Others have been wise and made the correct decision by putting their faith in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and have an eternity of indescribable joy.
Decisions, decisions, we all have to make them. What will your decision be concerning the only one that lasts for eternity?
Grant Phillips