Yesterday I asked whether you’d report the source of the money or save the orphanage.  I tend to think I’d report it—but choosing between telling the truth versus staying silent is a choice you will probably face many times in your life.  Again, no easy answers.

But take a step back now and think about these moral dilemmas.  It is interesting, isn’t it, that they are all contrived—meaning they’re made up scenarios by philosophers and academics—and even more than that, what makes the questions seem difficult is usually the added complexity and layers and contingencies.  Save the five people on the train tracks…but wait, if you do, then this other person will be harmed.  Report your dad’s theft of the sheep to the police…but wait, if you do, then he goes to jail for life…and also, the rich owner didn’t even know.  Tell the truth about the source of the orphanage donation…but wait, if you do, kids suffer and nobody is brought to justice.

I recently heard Tony Dungy speak at a lunch—he’s the NFL hall of fame coach and Super Bowl champion.  And before every major decision he made in his life—from adopting one more child into their family (they’ve adopted 9) to the decision to release a star wide receiver who refused to live up to the team standards of personal conduct—coach Dungy didn’t just think about the hard decision he faced; he prayed about it.  Proverbs says:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.
Be not wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

If you think about it, it’s pretty arrogant of us to think that we can figure out what to do in every circumstance just by thinking it through.  It’s awfully presumptuous of us to assume that we can ever know what the ultimate outcomes of our decisions will be.  And it’s rather foolish of us to believe that, even if we could know the outcomes, that we have the wisdom to know which to prefer in any given case.  

Maybe the real problem with moral dilemmas is not in the circumstances but in our lack of humility.  Maybe the only real, difficult choice is in deciding whether to rely on our own understanding or to seek God’s help in prayer when we’re faced with what looks like there’s no good option.  And the right answer to that one isn’t really that hard at all.