“You choose, Dad!”

I have often told the story about the time I took my son Christopher shopping for Star Wars figures in the late ’70s. I had told him to pick out one he wanted. He thought about it a long time, and finally decided on one of the small figurines from the bottom shelf, which as I recall, was the Han Solo one. Meanwhile, I had been looking three shelves up at Solo’s spacecraft, the Millennium Falcon. I said, “Well, why don’t we get this to go with your new figure?” His little eyes lit up. “Dad! Thank you!” And he gave me a big hug.

We would come home from the toy store with some big new prize like this, and sometimes my wife would roll her eyes, because we really couldn’t afford it. But then Topher and I would run upstairs to his room, plop on the floor, open up the toys, and play with them together. Looking back now, I don’t regret any of it. Nor does my wife. After a while, Christopher learned that when we were in a toy store and I asked him what he wanted, his best choice was to say, “You choose, Dad!”

And I would always get him something better than he would have chosen for himself. I have often used that as an illustration to point out that we should let God choose for us and never be afraid to commit an unknown future to a known God.

God’s plans for you will always be better than your plans for yourself.