A friend of mine, this week, ended up with a clot in his arteries. It was a precarious situation. I watched as he spoke to each of his children, made peace with them and himself, just in case the inevitable happened.

I looked to my wife that night and said, "I've got to take better care of myself. I don't want to end up with problems like that." I woke up the next day, took a vitamin, drank a couple bottles of water, and had a double cheeseburger for lunch.

Oh it was so good. Drippy sauce, wilting lettuce, the tomato was warm, toasted bun, peppered grilled beef. You know what I'm talking about.

Apparently another man's near death experience wasn't enough to change my ways.

His experience was like that of any preacher on a Sunday morning, or some author trying to sell 27 laws on how to make your life better. Suddenly, he had a platform and a message. "Do This Or Die!"

Even the thought of death couldn't pull the cheeseburger out of my hands. Guess I'll try again tomorrow.

It's a choice to do better, to be better. It's a choice to listen to our pastor's on Sunday morning and maybe try and follow the, uh, little bit of advice that God might be trying to share through this person. It's a choice to try and figure out how to implement some of those laws our favorite best selling authors have penned.

Nope. They can't make you do it. That's the beauty of being alive. You have a choice. But it can be exhausting, and life can be a bit erratic by having such a "free-spirit" mentality.

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical (being in direct opposition), so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.

Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

Not my words. Galatians 5:16-18. Maybe it's not so much a question of having the freedom of choice, as it is to have the choice to be free. Ah, I love it when you can flop a sentence around like that! Choosing to not give in to whatever weakness we may have is quite freeing in fact. Choosing to live by the Spirit of God is the ultimate freedom!

My friend is doing much better, thank God! And me? I'm in great health, except for a couple of extra pounds, so I'm not too concerned about the occasional cheeseburger. But that vitamin I took was terrible. Am I too old for chewables?