The Big Idea
“If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left.”
Genesis 13:9
When we live by faith in God, He offers us choices that look good on the surface. But choosing the “good” option can actually prevent us from experiencing God’s “best.” True faith means willingly surrendering our right to choose, trusting that God’s choice for us is infinitely superior to any choice we could make ourselves.
The Simple Takeaway
Life constantly presents us with choices between the good and the best. The good options are usually comfortable, reasonable, and supported by the people around us. The best options require us to relinquish control and trust God completely.
makes choices based on what’s right for them—securing their comfort, advancing their interests, protecting their future. These are legitimate rights, and the world affirms this wisdom. But over time, their spiritual sensitivity dims because they’ve centered themselves instead of God.
faces a choice where the comfortable option is available to them, but they choose instead to surrender the decision to God. It costs them something, but in that surrender, they grow spiritually. They discover that what God chose was better than what they would have chosen—not just for external circumstances, but for who they became in the choosing.
Chambers calls us from the reasonable self-protection of Person A into the adventure of Person B’s radical trust, where we learn that God’s “best” always surpasses our “good.”
One Question to Sit With
What right or comfort are you currently clinging to that might be preventing you from discovering God’s better choice for your life?
Commentary
“As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you.”
Rights and Righteousness Are Not the Same
Chambers begins by naming a hard truth: when we commit to faith, we don’t suddenly lose opportunities or face fewer choices. In fact, we often gain more options. But having a right to something—whether it’s comfort, security, advancement, or pleasure—is not the same as being righteous or wise in exercising that right. Living by faith means sometimes deliberately waiving what is legitimately ours.
“God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you.”
Testing the Center of Our Faith
When we face a choice where our own wellbeing is at stake, that becomes a test of whether our faith is real or merely theoretical. Chambers emphasizes that the truly faithful person doesn’t grimly surrender their interests—they do so “joyfully,” understanding that God’s choice serves their deepest good even when it requires sacrifice.
“This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.”
Transformation Happens Through Surrendered Obedience
Chambers identifies a core truth: we don’t become spiritual by thinking spiritual thoughts or reading spiritual books. We become spiritual through the discipline of repeatedly, faithfully surrendering our natural desires and choosing obedience to God instead. Each act of waiving our “right” trains us further in the spiritual life.
“Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough.”
The Good Can Become the Enemy of the Best
Here Chambers makes a distinction that cuts deeper than many of us realize. We often think the enemy of faith is obvious sin, but he argues the real danger is more subtle: making “good” choices based on our rights instead of seeking God’s best through surrender. A good choice that serves ourselves instead of aligning with God’s will slowly dulls our ability to hear God’s voice.
“The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose.”
The World Calls Good Choices Wise
Using Abraham’s story as an example, Chambers notes that everyone around Abraham would have expected him to choose—to use his rights and intelligence to pick the best-looking land for himself. From a worldly perspective, this would be wisdom. But faith operates on a different logic entirely.
“It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing. Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us.”
Spiritual Growth Stalls When We Cling to Our Rights
Chambers identifies why so many of us plateau in our spiritual development: we keep taking back what we’ve surrendered. We claim our rights back from God, thinking we’re being wise or responsible, and this act of reclamation stops our spiritual progress cold. The people around us may call us foolish, but faith’s growth depends on resisting that pressure.
“We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, ‘walk before Me.’”
Walking Before God, Not Ahead or Behind
Chambers’ invitation is to a specific kind of obedience: walking before God. Not rushing ahead to claim what’s ours, not lagging behind in uncertainty, but staying in step with Him, eyes fixed on Him rather than on the path. This is the “standard” we must learn—not a rule book, but a relational posture.
“We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character.”
God Shapes Us, Not Just Our Circumstances
In this closing wisdom, Chambers reminds us that God’s purpose isn’t simply to instruct us intellectually but to transform our character. When we waive our right to choose and let God choose for us, we’re not just allowing external circumstances to change—we’re allowing God to shape who we are becoming. That’s why His choice, though it may look less appealing, is always better than ours.