Choices

The most perplexing and perhaps shocking thought is why human choices are so diverse, given the same opportunities.

BOBBY JOSE KATTIKAD OFM CAP

TLife is like a buffet! Everything under the Sun is served. Life deserves the right choices because you already know what works for your wellbeing. What a great responsibility freedom is! The most perplexing and perhaps shocking thought is why human choices are so diverse, given the same opportunities. The assassin of Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth had a very famous brother, actor Edwin Booth. The man, who thought he had slipped into irreparable humiliation by his brother, withdrew from the public space. One day, Edwin Booth, who was standing at
the Railway station, saved the life of a young man who slipped from the platform on to the tracks. A few days later he received an official note: ‘It was Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln who was saved by your timely intervention. He kept that note with him until he died. This is the first time I’ve read this story from Max Lucado’s book ‘He Chose the Nails’. He reads this in conjunction with the basic tenets of the Bible - life and death are laid before you. The narrow path and the wide path, the front door and the back door, the crowd and the little flock, the house built on a rock and the house built on sand - so many choices that life puts on your plate.

It all ends on the cross. Two types of approaches occur from either side of the cross. Almost everything was common between those two convicted thieves. The same crimes, the same punishment, the same crowd around. Even the distance to Jesus’ cross is equal. And yet this is how things happened. Like the poetic saying: ‘two men look outside the prison bars; one Sees Mud, the other stars’. One of the criminals hanging on the cross cursed him; Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us! The other scolded the first and said, “Do you not fear God?” You are in the same judgment as he is. And indeed we have been condemned justly. We have been rewarded according to our crimes. But this man has done nothing wrong. Looking at Jesus he continued, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom!” Jesus replied: Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. ∎

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