At what cost?

Last night, I chatted with a student, and he talked about how he loves fishing.

His family lives in Mie Prefecture, but he lives in Osaka prefecture most of the week because of his job. He apparently goes back to visit his family every weekend… sort of.

Instead of spending time with his family, he usually goes out fishing.

He told me with a big smile on his face, “My wife always complains when I go out fishing and says I should spend more time with my daughters (8 and 10 years old respectively).”

As an English teacher, and especially meeting him for the first time, I couldn’t really say anything, but in my head, I was thinking, “You may enjoy fishing, but at what cost?”

He never sees his kids during the week nor his wife. And when he does come home, he never spends much time with them. The day will come when he finds that he has totally alienated his family… if that day hasn’t come already.

All of us make decisions in life. Sometimes we even make them thinking they’re for the best. But the question we need to constantly ask ourselves is, “At what cost am I doing these things?”

Lot’s daughters were desperate to preserve their family line. Their husbands had been killed when Sodom was destroyed. Their father had taken them away to the mountains, and they were basically living as hermits there, cut off from civilization.

And so they got their father drunk and slept with him. They preserved their family line, but at what cost? They degraded themselves and their father.

I wonder how Lot felt when he found out. He had made his own mistakes. At this point, he had nothing. There was no reason he couldn’t have gone back to Abraham. Abraham would’ve taken him in. But perhaps Lot was too ashamed at what had happened to him.

So he kept his pride and stayed away. But at what cost? What pride he had left was stripped away by his daughter’s actions.

But the amazing thing is that even from the depths that we find ourselves in because of the bad choices we make, God can still find a way to redeem the situation.

One of Lot’s daughters gave birth to a son named Moab.

Years later, from that family line came a woman called Ruth, who traveled with her mother-in-law Naomi to the land of Israel.

Ruth married a man named Boaz, and if you look far enough down that family line, you find the name of the ultimate Redeemer: Jesus.

Lot and his daughters made awful decisions. And yet God was still able to find a way to turn their situation into something that had worth.

He can do the same with us.

Maybe you married a non-Christian, and now you’re facing marital problems because of it.

Maybe you neglected your family, and now your wife is leaving you.

Maybe you walked away from God to pursue your career, and now your life feels empty, and you feel that God has abandoned you.

Whatever mess you’ve made of your life, God will not abandon you. He will not give up on you. And he can turn the most horrible situation into something beautiful.

All you need to do is turn to him. Admit that you’ve made bad decisions. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for his help. And God will be there for you.

It doesn’t mean that God will necessarily take away your problems. But he will see you through them.

As it says in James 4:10,

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.