“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”(Deuteronomy 24:15)

“I couldn’t help myself. It was as though I had no control. I had no choice but to…”

From time to time pastors like me will hear these words from someone who has messed up in some area of their life.

Granted temptations can be so severe at times, the attacks so intense or the pressure so immense that you could feel as though you had to succumb. Often in the heat of the moment, your will can be weakened so rapidly that you end up making a choice that you live to regret sooner or later.

Yet, is it true that you really had no choice in the matter?

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, writes about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp in a book that you may have read or heard about: “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

As you can very well imagine, prisoners at these camps had absolutely no rights. Everything was taken away from them, including their identity. Rather than being known by their names, they were assigned numbers.

You could make a very good case that they did not really have a say in anything that happened to them, that they had no choice but to accept their fate.

Frankl notes how some who had reached this conclusion got weaker by the day and died.

He, however, received a revelation that would help him survive the deplorable conditions that prisoners were forced to endure. Here is how he phrases it:

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

In other words, he still had a choice in the matter. Once he recognized it, now he did not have to feel powerless. Because he still had the power to choose.

Frankl chose to maintain a hopeful attitude rather than curl up and die as some did. It is this choice that helped him survive the concentration camp.

Here is another quote from the aforementioned book: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Even in the place where it may seem as though we do not have a choice, Frankl points out that there is a window of time when we can make a choice.

I recall a speaker who phrased it this way: “God is for you. The devil is against you. You cast the deciding vote!”

Recently, a Sozo minister taught me something that I believe will be a blessing to you.

Let’s say you are upset by something someone said or did to you. The stimulus is irritation. The most common response would be anger in one form or another.

However, in that space between getting upset and responding with anger, here is what Rob taught me to say: “I see you, spirit of anger. I refuse to partner with you. I send you to the foot of the cross. Now, Jesus, what you do have in exchange for me?”

You see, dear DWOD friend, it is only when you choose to partner with the spirit that attacks you that you respond in a sinful manner. When you refuse to agree, you are now in charge. You have power. You can now exercise that power in a godly way.

Try it. You’ll be amazed how you will make the right choice…every time!

I look forward to hearing your testimonies. Please share them with the rest of your DWOD family in the comments section below.