No One Can Make Me

Yesterday, as I was on the Chain Bridge heading over to a meeting at Wesley Theological Seminary in DC, I had plenty of time to read a bumper sticker on the car in front of me. It read: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Some random thoughts quickly followed after reading it:

·      yes, people can end up committing atrocities because of what they believe—we have seen ample evidence of this in our world;

·      what are absurdities to one person may not be to another—I find it absurd to believe that life has no meaning, while others find my belief in God absurd; and

·      but atrocities are atrocities—enslaving is enslaving no matter what the belief; abuse is abuse no matter what; killing for the sake of power is killing no matter what.

Suddenly that train of thought ran smack into what I think is a guiding principle for me: no one can make me believe anything; no one can make me do anything.

I have a choice regardless of what others might think. In each moment of each day, I have a choice as to what I will do or say. I cannot fall back on Flip Wilson’s excuse, “The devil made me do it.”

When teenaged Harry Potter thought that the prophecy determined his fate, Albus Dumbledore told him that he is not bound by the prophecy. Harry has a choice. He can choose to walk away. Of course, that does not mean that Voldemort will not still hunt him down. In the end, Harry chooses to place himself in the gap in order to protect others.

In real life, a young Jew imprisoned in a concentration camp is severely beaten because he dared eat the lettuce put out for the pet bunny of the wife of the camp’s commandant. He dreams of killing her. When liberation happens, he picks up a gun and goes with his friends to her house. He points it at her with his finger on the trigger. She begs for her life. She had had him beaten over lettuce. His friends urge him to shoot. Finally, he lowers the gun. To kill her would reduce him to the level of Mengele and all the others who tortured, abused and annihilated. He chose life.

When we endure suffering, we have a choice of becoming bitter or trusting. When we face struggles of disappointment, grief, loss, failure and more, we have a choice of whether we curl up and die or move through the struggle and allow something new to grow.

This is not an easy choice by any means. It does not deny the depth and anguish of suffering or struggle. It does not belittle what we have lost. It allows us to build on the loss and move into something of new meaning, new beauty—into hope.

No one can make me believe or do anything; I have a choice. I choose life; I choose hope; I choose love.

Joshua 24:15

Choose this day whom you will serve…; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.