Independence

by Jeffrey W. Hamilton

I was thinking about you today. Thinking about the choices you've been making. You've told many people that drugs are not the way to get what you want out of life. In fact, you've stated that they are keeping you from the things you most desire. Yet, you continue to hurt yourself, and that leaves me puzzled. How does an intelligent young man make stupid choices?

I remember being young, looking forward to the time I was old enough to make my own decisions. Then, I knew, I would be a man because my choices would be my own and whatever resulted would be my responsibility. Even here, however, Satan can twist things to trap us in sin. Too many young people make choices, not based on right or wrong, or based on what brings them close to their goals. Instead, they pick things solely because it isn't what parents or other authoritative people would pick. Satan insists that it can't be really your decision if other people agree with it.

That is the trap Rehoboam fell into (I Kings 12:1-16). When he took the throne, the people of Israel asked him for relief from the taxes his father imposed during his reign. His father's advisors considered the idea and told Rehoboam that it would be a good way to win the people's hearts. However, Rehoboam also talked to the people of his generation. They told him to assert himself and show the people who is king. Rehoboam liked his friend's plan. He told the people that if they thought the taxes were heavy before, they hadn't seen anything yet. The result was that he lost ten of the twelve tribes.

Instead of weighing his decision on what he wanted to accomplish, Rehoboam chose a way that was different from what his father or his advisors would have done. Looking back, it was obviously a dumb choice. But isn't that exactly the same thing you are doing? Making choices simply because they are contrary to what even you know is best solely to prove you are an adult? And in the end, you prove you remain a child being led by the nose by drugs.