The Better Choice Versus The Only Right Choice

“So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.” (Ge 12:4 AV)

 

Lot is an example of someone who makes the better choice rather than the right choice.  Most of the time, they are one and the same.  But not always.  Lot was the son of Haran.  Haran was Abraham’s oldest brother.  He passed away in the land of Ur.  Haran, that is.  Abraham’s father, Terah, packed up his family and decided to follow Abram into the land of Canaan because God called him there.  Abram, that is.  However, when Terah and the whole caravan arrived in a city with the same name as the recently deceased, Terah parked the moving vans in Haran and never left.  God came to Abram again in the land of Haran and called him into Canaan.  Lot chose to follow Abram.  However, I believe he made this choice pragmatically and not on principle.  His father had passed away.  Now, his grandfather, the patriarch of the family had also passed away.  There was nothing really holding him anywhere.  If he remained in Haran, he would be the sole patriarch of his extended family.  It seemed like a better option to follow Abraham.  I believe this is a sound exegesis because Lot makes a pattern of this kind of decision making.  He makes the better choice.  Not always the right choice.

Let’s face it.  No one like negative experiences.  We do not like confrontation.  Most of us, anyway.  We do not like mechanical failures.  We do not like illness.  We do not like difficult conversations.  Sometimes, what might seem to be a better choice is not always the only right choice.  Sometimes, things working out fine is enough even if things could have worked out better.  Serving in ministry, one is confronted with these choices all the time.  It is a temptation to think and react politically or pragmatically rather than spiritually.  We want to hold our churches together with the best we can and solve issues more in a pragmatic way rather than what truly needs to be done.  In essence, we kick the can down the road hoping the problem will solve itself.  It may work for the short term, but in the end, it doesn’t work out well for some.  We rationalize it away by thinking we are striving for unity and efficiency.  We take was seems to be the better choice rather than the only right choice.  Taking the only right choice is hard to do.  The result may not be what we had hoped for.  But, it is the result the LORD would wish.  There is only one right choice.  Lot had only one right choice and that was to go with Abram.  But he didn’t make that choice because it was the only right one.  He made it because it was the better one.  And there is a difference.

Making a better choice versus making the right choice is the difference between making a rational choice rather than making a choice based on one’s conscience.  Again, for the believer, most of the time they are one and the same.  But not always.  Making the right choice based solely on reason and not involving the conscience may still be the right choice, but it will not be as deeply rooted in integrity.  The only right choice is always better.  But the better choice is not always the only right choice.  Lot made the choice to go with Abram.  That was the right choice.  But he didn’t make that choice because his conscience drove him to it.  He didn’t make that choice because it was the only right choice.  He made that choice because it was the better choice.  So, when their herdsman strove over watering rights, Lot made the better choice.  This time, however, it was not the only right choice.  This led him to eventually abandon ranching and settle in the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This is what happens when we make a habit of making a better choice rather than the only right choice.  Eventually, a better choice and the only right choice will not be one and the same.  And there will be a price to pay for it.