It mattereth not

“Do you want the blue cup or the purple cup?”

I asked my three year old this question the other day as we searched online for some new sippy cups.

“Ummmmm…”

I knew we were in trouble.

She spent quite a long time looking at the two options, talking about the colors that she likes (yellow is her favorite) and clicking back and forth between them both.

Some choices in life really don’t matter.

I don’t often pray about what shirt to wear, what to eat for dinner, or which paint to choose.

But more often than not, I’ve learned that the Lord says “it mattereth not” on some decisions that I think He really SHOULD care about.

When I prayed whether or not to serve a mission or marry the cute boy I had just started dating…

I was shocked to get a response of: “You get to choose! Either way, your life will turn out great.”

What?!

How could it not matter?

I’ve had a few thoughts on this recently.

I know for my life, that “mission or marry” decision 8 years ago dramatically affected everything about me.

And surely, the omniscient God knew what I would pick and how it would eternally change me.

But… He needed me to make the choice.

He wanted me to come to Him in prayer. But He didn’t want me to give my decision-making power up.

I needed to use my agency. To make that choice. To own my decision.

When I read about the missionaries heading down the Missouri River, asking for what mode of transportation they should use, I initially thought that the Lord saying “it mattereth not” was just a way of Him letting them know that it really doesn’t matter.

But right afterwards, we learn that the Lord commanded them to NOT travel via the canoes on the river.

So… their mode of transportation DID matter.

But He still let them make the choice.

So they could learn the lesson.

I know I’ve talked about this a lot recently, but the more I’ve studied about prayer and communication with my Heavenly Father, the more I’ve realized that He wants us to use our agency so much.

So much.

Agency is the way we are molding our will to His.

Not by asking for directions and then following them.

(Although, sometimes He knows it’s best to tell us His will.)

Sometimes, things really don’t matter. My daughter finally decided on the purple cup, and it will likely not have any lasting effect on her eternal destiny.

Other times, and in my opinion pretty rarely, things matter enough for God to tell me exactly what’s up.

But most of the time, things matter, and yet God knows that telling me is going to rob me of a growing experience.

I have to choose, and I have to own that decision.

For that’s how I become like Him.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black