Choices

There's a temptation all of us face when a hard decision must be made. I know full well the siren allure of procrastination. The desire to avoid conflict is almost overwhelming at times. There is just one problem with that approach--it doesn't work.

President Bush sparked a firestorm with his remarks in Israel a few weeks ago regarding the folly of appeasement. But he was dead right. If you give in to people who are trying to take advantage of you, the only thing you accomplish is to encourage them to demand more. No matter how harsh the reality of a choice is, it is always superior to delaying tactic that seeks to avoid conflict at the cost of small surrenders. Eventually those surrenders mount up, and you have nothing left to give.

I don't think people should go out of their way to look for trouble. There's plenty of trouble that will find us just fine without our help. But as my pastor when I was growing up used to say, "Sometimes silence isn't golden; it's just plain yellow."