FAITH FILES
WHOM do you favour the most – Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss? One of them will, in a few weeks’ time, move into No 10 Downing Street and take up the post of prime minister. If you are one of the 160,000 or so members of the Conservative Party, you will be able to vote for your preferred candidate. Otherwise, you will have to put up with the choice that other people have made, even if your choice would have been different.
Life is full of choices. They can’t be avoided. I have chosen to write this column, and you have chosen to read it. Whether you read till the end is another choice for you to make. You may also choose what you think and feel about what I am writing, and whether or not to act on those thoughts and feelings.
Sometimes, we find it difficult to choose. Sunak or Truss? That will be a dilemma for many. Some would want neither, and so may abstain from voting – but that, in itself, is also a choice. We may, sometimes, make a wrong choice, the consequences of which may cause us to suffer, whether for a few moments or for the rest of our lives.
God doesn’t exempt us from making choices. He has given us free will so that we can make choices expressly and intentionally. Free will also means that we are responsible for the choices that we make. Throughout the Bible, God asks us to choose His will over everything else which might compete to guide our decisions, but that choice is left entirely to us.
God also offers to give us wisdom so that we can make the best choices in life. We only need to ask. God can even overwrite any wrong choices that we make so that every detail of our existence fits together within His perfect plan for our lives. God can do this because He is all-powerful and all-knowing.
It often happens that we become victims of other people’s choices. This will be the case whether Sunak or Truss becomes Prime Minister. The 68 million people who weren’t given the choice will, nevertheless, experience the impact of the choice made by a small minority. Maybe now is the time to pray for God’s will to be done.
Ian Toone, lay member of New
Life Church Derby