"The important thing about a man is not where he goes when he is compelled to go, but where he goes when he is free to go where he will. . . The choices of life, not the compulsions, reveal character.
The true character of a man is revealed in the uses he makes of his freedoms. The slave peoples do what they are told because they are not free to do what they will. It is the free nation that reveals its character by its voluntary choices. The man who 'bowed by the weight of centuries . . . leans upon his hoe and gazes on the ground' when the long day's work is over is glad to get home to supper and to bed; he has little time for anything else. But in those fortunate lands where modern machinery and labor unions have given men many free hours out of every day and at least two free days out of every week, they have time to do almost anything they will. They are free to destroy themselves by their choices, and many of them are doing just that.
Our choices reveal what kind of persons we are, but there is another side to the coin. We may by our choices also determine what kind of persons we will become. We humans are not only in a state of being, we are in a state of becoming; we are on a slow spiral moving gradually up or down. I think it might be well for us to check our spiritual condition occasionally by the simple test of compatibility. When we are free to go, where do we go? In what company do we feel most at home? Where do our thoughts turn when they are free to turn where they will? When the pressure of work or business or school has temporarily lifted and we are able to think of what we will instead of what we must, what do we think then?
The answer to these questions may tell us more about ourselves than we can comfortably accept. But we had better face up to things."
Good words to ponder from the pen of A. W. Tozer MAN: THE DWELLING PLACE
OF GOD published by Christian Publications.
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