Choice is a Limitation

Is choice really a limitation? One of my friend said, "A choice is a liberation."

We grow up choosing all the time. My nephew at the age of four had already learnt to choose. He chooses to wear his favorite pair of shoes. He chooses the type and colors of clothes he likes. He chooses things that he favors. Even before that age, we were all bombarded with choices, regardless whether you remember it clearly. We are all given the FREEDOM to choose according to our desires. What a priviledge! What a beautiful gift!

 

Choices are God-given. He loves us, that is the reason why He had granted us choices in life. To have the ability to choose is the ability to love as well. A child grows up making the choice whether to love his/her parents. There’s no rule in the world that state that a growing child MUST love his/her parents. It is because of the choice given, we were able to love.

But, you see a choice is a limitation as well. When you make a choice, you accept the limitation of that choice. To accept the limitation requires maturity. The child has not yet learned that it can have everything. What it sees it wants. What it does not get it screams for. It has to grow up to realize that saying Yes to happiness often means saying No to yourself.

To choose to do this is to choose not to do a thousand things.

A story of a lady who had embarks into the man’s world: Betty Greene, one of the founders of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship. She had flown all types of plane except a jet. She even ferried bombers to World War II, and she didn’t look like a pilot, according to many. Often, she would land in some foreign airfield the authorities were nonplussed to see a woman step out of the plane. “Do you fly these planes alone?” she was often asked. But long ago Betty had made up her mind that if she was going to make her way in a man’s world she had to be a lady. She would have to compete with men in being a pilot, but she would not compete with men in being a man. She refused to try in any way to act like a man.

She chose to be a pilot, but that does not mean she chose to be a man. She chose to be a lady. She knew very well the limitation of being a pilot and also being a lady in a man’s world.

It’s the same as we go about our choices in life. To choose your course of study is to say no to all the courses which may interest you. To choose to work in this area (eg. with people) is to say no to other type works. To choose to follow God is to say no to my own ways. To choose to believe Him is to trust only in His commandments He had given.

Every choice has its own limitation. In that limitation, there’s liberation and serenity.

To do this is not to do. 

To be this is not to be that.

Indeed, a choice is a limitation.

-Elisabeth Elliot-