By the time 8am rolls around, I have already made about 100 choices.  Let me rattle off a few of them.

1.  Hit the snooze button once, twice, or three times
2.  Wear slightly wrinkled pants and hope the wrinkles fall out as the day goes on or pull out the ironing board
3.  Eat healthy oatmeal and fruit or left over pizza
4.  Take the time to bathe my 3 year old or just douse him with powder
5.  Get gas on the way to work and be late or pray that I can make it to work and get gas after

As my day progresses, the number of choices I make will soar into the hundreds.

Most choices we make never register in our brain.  They just seem automatic.  BUT, they are choices.  Just as choosing to eat the low calorie lunch I packed or choosing to go to lunch with coworkers is a CHOICE, so is choosing to snap at my husband.  It seemed automatic and uncontrollable, but it was a choice.  Just as choosing to cook broccoli or green beans is a choice, so is having a lingering attitude with my co workers that spills over from a bad interaction two days ago.  It seems natural and automatic, but continuing to have an attitude is a choice.

There are windows of opportunities that we are presented with every interaction.  The windows may be more narrow in some than in others, but they exist.  If we are going to be self controlled and calm beings, we have to find those windows.  We have to acknowledge that if we responded inappropriately to a situation, we choose to do so, it just didn't happen.

So examine your interaction with your spouse, children, and co workers over the past week.  What choices have you made?  Are you proud of those choices?

As you go forward this week, pray that God helps you to have clearness of mind and thought in order to be able to appropriately choose the correct response and interactions.  Remember, no behavior and no response just happens, we choose it.