What You Abandon and What You Prefer

Jeremiah 2:11
Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
for worthless idols.

Jeremiah 2:13
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Opportunity cost is the value of what you left in order to have this current choice. If you left a meal worth twenty in order to have a drink worth thirty, then the opportunity cost is the twenty of the meal you left. Be sensitive on what you abandon and what you prefer, it reveals your values. What you abandon and what you prefer says a lot about you and how you make decisions!

Opportunity cost is a reminder that we must be keen when making choices. The choice we make has value. The choice we abandon or reject too has value. Since we can’t have both, opportunity cost is what we choose to abandon. What you abandon and what you prefer reveals your true internal values!

The Bible tells us that traditionally people rarely and almost never change their gods. They have placed so high a premium on their gods that under almost no extreme circumstance can they abandon their gods. They can’t forego the value of their gods for anything else. No value can replace their worthless gods that are actually carvings. They refuse to abandon their gods. They refuse to prefer anything else over their gods. The value of their gods is too great to abandon.

Yet, God complains that Israelites have done what has never been done. Israel has abandoned their God. Israel has found gods and things they consider of higher value over their God. By abandoning God and preferring idols, Israelites made a damning statement about their faith and values.

The Bible further tells us that God is a spring of endless freshwater. Yet Israelites prefer to dig their own cisterns that are cracked and ever dry without water. Do people abandon endless freshwater for unreliable broken cisterns? Yet crazy as it sounds that is what Israelites have done. What you abandon and what you prefer!

Is abandoning God a worthwhile bargain? Is abandoning a freshwater spring, wise when you are preferring a broken cistern? Doesn’t it sound extremely foolish? What about abandoning worship for pleasure? Isn’t it equally idiotic? What about abandoning God’s will in order to achieve transient earthly glories? What you abandon and what you prefer says a lot about you!

Abandoning your marriage for an undefined fling? Abandoning a savings plan to gamble and bet? Abandoning the hard-tested road for a shortcut to wealth that ends up being a mirage? Abandoning a safe journey in order to race with other vehicles whose owners and destinations you don’t know? Abandoning healthful living to satisfy a sugar tooth and unhealthy diets? What you abandon and what you prefer reveals that your commitments are either shallow or solidly deep.

Look at your life again. Mentally, physically, financially, socially, and spiritually. What have you abandoned? What have you preferred? May God grant us wisdom and courage to abandon what we must and to prioritize what we should, in Jesus’ name, Amen!

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