Make The Best Choice, Not Just The Good Choice

We Must Deal With The World As It Is, Not As We Wish It Would Be

Now the men of Israel had sworn at Mizpah, “No one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin.” And the people came to Bethel, and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. And they said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this come to pass in Israel, that there should be today one tribe lacking in Israel?” And on the morrow the people rose early, and built there an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the people of Israel said, “Which of all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to the Lord?” For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah, saying, “He shall be put to death.” And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin their brother, and said, “One tribe is cut off from Israel this day. What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives?”

Judges 21:1-7

There is a natural order in the world: Choices lead to actions. Actions lead to reactions. Reactions lead to consequences.

We see this order unfolding in the world wherever we turn: We choose to have that second cup of coffee before leaving for work, and ultimately get stuck in traffic, frustrated because we know that if we had only left a few minutes sooner we would have avoided it. We choose to hit the snooze button on the alarm clock one more time and miss the bus, ending up being late to work. We say “yes” when asked out on a date, and begin a relationship that lasts a lifetime.

Yet this order is not a line, but a circle, bringing us back each time to the beginning. Consequences, after all, are what lead to new choices: the choice of whether or not to seek an alternate route to wherever we are going, the choice to stay late at work and make up the time, the choice whether or perhaps when to start a family.

Choices lead to actions. Actions lead to reactions. Reactions lead to consequences. Consequences lead to choices. This is always the order of things.

We are reminded that this is the intended order of things in Deuteronomy, 30:19, when God challenges the Israelites to choose life, saying through Moses “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” By this we are called to choose well, and to always make good choices.

Yet whether we make good or bad choices, actions follow upon every choice. Reactions follow upon every action. Consequences follow upon every reaction. No matter how or what we choose, this will be the sequence that unfolds.

Sometimes we do not choose well. Sometimes we do not make good choices. Sometimes we are faced with the consequences that stem from bad choices.

Such consequences rarely present us with good choices. Yes, we can stay late at work to make up lost time, or we can take a hit on the next paycheck. If we stay late then we will be late getting home, and unable to do what we had planned after work. If we take the hit on the paycheck then we cannot enjoy whatever indulgence we had planned for spending that paycheck.

We must make one choice or another, and so it is certain we will face one bad consequence or another. That is the result of making poor choices.

Choices lead to actions. Actions lead to reactions. Reactions lead to consequences. Consequences lead to choices. This is always the order things.

Yet what are we to make of those times when our good choices leave us with only bad consequences, and present us with only future unpleasant choices?

Such is the situation of the Israelites at Bethel in the closing chapters of Judges.

Members of the tribe of Benjamin grotesquely violated God’s Law, raping and killing a woman. When men from the other tribes of Israel came to demand justice and hold those Benjaminites to account, the rest of the tribe of Benjamin chose to stay loyal to their tribesmen, defying Israel. The other tribes of Israel were incensed by this, swearing that they would never allow any of their daughters to be taken in marriage by any of the tribe of Benjamin.

Civil war followed, bloody and destructive, resulting in appalling carnage. When it was over, only a few of the tribe of Benjamin remained—none of whom were women or children.

The rest of the Israelites were presented with a choice: Do nothing, and allow one of the twelve tribes of Israel—one described in Deuteronomy 33:12 as “the beloved of the Lord”—to vanish forever, or renege on a sacred oath—an act made categorically sinful in Deuteronomy 23:21—by allowing the surviving Benjaminites to take wives from among their daughters.

Suffice it to say, neither of these choices were particularly appealing to the Israelites.

How did Israel come to be in such a predicament? Did the Benjaminites err by staying loyal to their tribesmen? Did the other tribes make a mistake by zealously pursuing justice and holding the Benjaminites to account for their misdeeds?

All things being equal, our society generally looks kindly on loyalty. All things being equal, our society generally looks favorably on the pursuit of justice.

What are we to take from such seeming good choices leading to a result where the future choices are all bad?

This much is certain: there is no going back from either a choice or an action. There is no unringing of the bell, no unmaking of any mistake.

When the Israelites gathered at Bethel, there was no undoing the civil war they had just fought. There was no reversing the violence or the death that civil war inflicted on the Israelite people. Regardless of the reasons for the civil war, the reality for the Israelites was that they had been in a civil war. Regardless of the reasons behind the choices on both sides, Israel had chosen to sow a wind of civil war, and so reaped a whirlwind of bad choices.

The Israelites could not undo their civil war, nor the death that resulted from that civil war. All the Israelites could do at Bethel was to go forward from civil war, and build whatever peace could be had in the aftermath of that war.

The surviving Benjaminites could offer nothing that would heal the breach which had arisen within Israel. Yet Israel had to receive them back into the tribes of Israel, or else the breach would become permanent. No matter what had been done during the civil war, all of it—all of the violence, all of the killing, all of the wickedness—had to be set aside, and a place made for the tribe of Benjamin.

Most of all, the surviving Benjaminites needed wives, that they might continue their bloodlines. Thus the tribes of Israel, having sworn never to give their daughters as wives to the tribe of Benjamin, had to permit the Benjaminites to abduct new wives from among their daughters, using the commandment of Deuteronomy 22:28-29 to craft a loophole to their sacred oath.

A peace to heal the breach within Israel was sealed with kidnapping and forced marriage.

That is, by any measure, a monstrous choice. One could even say—with reason—that it is a wicked evil choice. Yet for the Israelites at Bethel, there were few choices available that would not be wicked evil choices. Reneging on a sacred oath would have been seen as an equally wicked and evil choice. Completing the extermination of the tribe of Benjamin woujld have also been seen as a wicked and evil choice.

When all choices appear wicked and evil, it is certain that the choice which gets made will be wicked and evil. The Israelites at Bethel had their pick of wicked and evil choices, and so they made the wicked and evil choice to sanction this one time kidnapping and forced marriage.

How often do we find ourselves similarly confronted with wicked and evil choices, with no good choices available? How often do our reasoned and even well-intentioned choices lead us into a morass of unpleasant and arguably bad choices, where no good option presents itself? How often do we seemingly do everything “right”, only to have everything go wrong?

Certainly in my life, that has happened more times than I care to count.

Has that happened because the choices I thought were good choices were, in retrospect, not good choices? Almost certainly.

Has that happened because I failed to recognize or appreciate certain potential consequences until it was too late? Most assuredly.

Sometimes it has happened and I cannot see where I could have made a better choice.

Regardless of the reasons, however, the reality in such moments is still one of not having any good choices available—and still needing to choose something.

Like the Israelites at Bethel, in such moments the challenge is to focus on the world as it is, and to deal with the world as it is, and not to dwell on the world as we wish it would be.

Perhaps that means making peace with someone against our wishes. Perhaps that means enduring an unpleasant job in order to maintain a steady paycheck. Perhaps that means not attempting to win an argument with a partner.

We are called in this world to make good choices. We are called in this world to choose wisely and to choose well. We are challenged to choose life every day.

Many choices are hard. Many choices are unpleasant. Some choices may even stand in conflict with values we want to hold dear.

Yet still we must choose. Still we must select a path and, somehow, move forward from wherever we are.

Even when the choices are hard, and even when the choices all seem to be bad choices, we are still challenged to choose life. We are still called to choose as wisely as we can. We are still called to select the best choices we can, no matter how bad they may appear.

My prayer each day is that I will find the strength and the wisdom to make, not merely the good choice, the righteous choice, but to make the best choice, even when that choice seems less than righteous.

My prayer for you as well is that you will find the strength and the wisdom to likewise make not merely a good and righteous choice, but to likewise make the best choice, whether that best choice seem righteous or no.

We are as we are in this life. As we are, we are called to choose life, and to make the most of the life we have. We are called to make the hard choice, and we are called to make the difficult choice.

Such is the essence of choosing well.