THE
BIGNESS OF LITTLE CHOICES

Topics: Character; Choices; Crisis; Decisions; Honesty; Integrity; Mistakes; Temptation; Truth

Reference: Ephesians 4:25

My wife, Jana, was working as a nurse in a clinic when a young mother came in with her eighteen-month-old son. He needed his final shot for a routine immunization, and she needed a physical. Both patients—and Jana—were new to the clinic.

Jana gave the boy his shot, and his mother took him back to the waiting room to his sister and grandmother. The mother went back for her physical. When Jana went to record the vaccination on the boy’s chart, she noticed that the seal on the vial inside her lab coat was unbroken. Quickly Jana realized that she had given the boy the wrong vaccine.

She gasped when she realized her mistake. Here is the sequence of the thoughts that followed:

“No one will ever know. No harm done.”

“I can’t tell the doctor.”

“This is my first day on the job.”

“The doctor will think I’m incompetent.”

“It can’t hurt the boy, can it?”

“It doesn’t hurt to be immunized twice for the same thing.”

“But he needs the right vaccine.”

“What will the mother say?”

“But I will always know, and so will God.”

Following Jesus is often cast as a series of big things—the big decision to be more committed, the big decision to forsake all and become a missionary, the big decision to become a pastor, the big decision to do big things for God. Yet the real battles are often fought internally, in quickly passing moments.

When the doctor walked out of the room, Jana told him her mistake. After a few moments, he walked back in the room, told the mother what happened, and asked her to schedule another time for her child’s immunization. Jana’s anxiety released; she was now free.

—Dave Goetz, Wheaton, Illinois