Reminders: The Coin Toss

One Sunday morning Jimmy was wondering why his friend Bobby was not at the game.  By the time Bobby arrived, the game was well under way.  "Why are you so late?" asked Jimmy.  "I couldn't decide between going to church and going to the game.  So I tossed a coin," said Bobby.  "But that shouldn't have taken that long." said Jimmy. "Well, I had to toss it 35 times." Bobby confessed.

We all have to make tough decisions.  There are so many things to do and so little time.  Sometimes, we don’t seem to have a choice at all.  For kids it might be activity schedules that adults have already decided for them.  For adults it might be work schedules that keep them from going to church.  Other times it is just too hard to decide what is most important, even when we have a choice. 

No one should be made to feel guilty if they actually have no choice, but sometimes we might have more choices than we know.  The truth is, free will is a wonderful, God-given privilege.  The problem is that having free will means we must make choices.  We can flip a coin 35 times or we can make careful (prayerful) decisions.  If we take a few quiet moments to think through the alternatives and meditate on whether we really have a choice.  We might find out that we do have a choice.  Maybe there are things we can do to change work schedules, or we can find a different church service to attend at a different time.

There is a story about a boss who seemed very wise, and one day, during an interview in his office he was asked:

“Sir, what is the secret of your success?”
He said, “Two words.”
“And, Sir, what are they?”
“Right decisions.”
“But how do you make right decisions?”
“One word.” He responded.
“And, sir, what is that word?”
“Experience.”
“And how do you get Experience?”
“Two words: wrong decisions!”