Many things in life seemed to be far simpler when I was growing up. You bought your electricity from the Electricity Company and your gas from the Gas Board. If you had a telephone – and many people didn’t – you paid your bills at the Post Office; mobile phones of course were the stuff of fiction. Unless you were well-off and could afford private education, your children went to the local school. If you had a television (and we didn’t for a long time) there were two channels to choose from: the BBC and “the other side”. Even on the wireless you could only select from the Light Programme, the Home Service and something mysterious called the Third Programme, although young people took their “tranny” under the bedclothes at night and secretly tuned into Radio Luxembourg or Voice of America! You bought your food at somewhere we just called “the shops”, and you could have any colour of car so long as it was black!

Things are very different today as, in most areas of life, we have a vast amount of choice. There are thousands of energy and communication deals out there, from a multitude of suppliers; we never need lack for entertainment, especially if we’re willing to pay for it; even the smallest supermarket sells a range of products that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago; holidays (before Covid of course) can be taken anywhere in the world rather than just at Barry Island or Blackpool. Some of the options available to us are actually more illusory than real: the conductor on the train to London may thank you for “choosing” to travel Great Western but no other company runs that service; and no child who lives more than a few hundred yards from my local school will get a place, even if the parents have listed it as their first, second and third choices!

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes get paralysed by having to make so many decisions, even if I’m just looking at a shelf of baked beans in the supermarket. Making the wrong choice there is hardly going to be life-changing; at worst I’ll have wasted a few pence and vowed never to buy the same brand again. Online shopping is worse: a columnist in my paper last week complained about the length of time it takes to buy even a simple item because you have to scroll through so many adverts, offers and delivery options. And choosing the wrong holiday destination or energy deal can be extremely expensive and leave a nasty taste in one’s mouth. In any case, and even after taking advice and researching widely, many of us make our choices but are left with that niggling feeling: did I get the best deal, could I have done better?

The Bible is full of stories about choices. So we read about people being chosen for different tasks, for instance God choosing Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, Samuel choosing the boy David to be king, Jesus choosing his disciples, Paul choosing Barnabas, Silas and Timothy to be his travelling companions. And we have stories of people deciding between various courses of action, both wisely and unwisely: Eve choosing to listen to the serpent rather than obey God; Lot deciding to settle in the Jordan Valley while Abraham went further west to Canaan; David giving in to desire and sleeping with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba; Ruth insisting on travelling to Israel with her mother-in-law Naomi and leaving her sister Orpah in Moab; Peter choosing to get of the boat and walk on the water towards Jesus; the Jerusalem church selecting deacons to sort out its ropey administration; Paul deciding to take his dream of a Macedonian man saying, “Come here and help us” at face value and setting sail at once. I’m sure there are many, many more.

One decision that is posed repeatedly is for people to choose between following the Bible’s God and other deities or values. Joshua challenges the Hebrews about to enter the Promised Land, “Today you must choose who you will serve”; Elijah says to those watching his sacrifice, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him”; Jeremiah tells his readers that God had said, “Stand at the cross-roads, ask for the ancient path where the good way lies; and walk in it” but that they had replied, “We will not”; Jesus calls potential disciples to choose between serving him or dedicating their life to money, for they “cannot serve two masters”;  James writes, “Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God”.

In four days’ time we will be asked to make our choice. It’s a choice that most of you have already made several times, although it will the first time for Moira and myself. I’m talking, of course, of the Senedd election. Now people will approach the election in a number of different ways. Some will cast their vote for a particular party because “that’s who they always vote for”. Some will have carefully listened to TV interviews and even read the parties’ manifestos. Some people will cast their vote because they like their local candidate or the party leader while others will be torn: they think that the man or woman standing in their area is great but don’t want to see that party forming the next Government. Some folk may follow their spouse’s example. And some – far too many in my opinion – will shrug their shoulders, claim that “all the politicians are as bad as each other” and not bother to vote at all.

But how do we make our choices? And is there a specifically Christian way of voting? Well, I certainly believe that our faith should affect our political thinking – but I also believe that it would be wrong for me to push a particular party line from the pulpit, although I know that many Welsh ministers have done exactly that in the past! I also recognise that, in practical terms, the powers and responsibilities of the Senedd are constrained by Wales’ place and funding as part of the United Kingdom – that, itself, an issue which is being debated at the moment, especially since the Covid pandemic has exposed flaws and inconsistencies in the current devolution system. However, Christians should remember that they are citizens of two kingdoms, heavenly and earthly, which intersect at times such as these. Wales is just one tiny part of the world, but I’m sure that God has an interest in it and its people.

This means that, in my view, Christians should not cut themselves off from politics (although politics in the modern sense didn’t, of course, exist in Bible times). I believe that Christians – and other people, of course! – should think carefully about the policies that each party is advocating before they cast their votes. Having said that, no one party will ever manage to ‘tick all our boxes’ so we’ll have to arrive at a ‘least worst’ decision, a compromise. But I do think we should look for Christian values in a party’s policies, by which I don’t mean personal morality (Governments struggle to legislate for that). I want to see if a party is seeking the common good rather than pandering to the banks, if it wants to promote harmony between different groups of people and justice for everyone, if it believes in rewarding hard work and supporting the needy, if it promotes good stewardship of God’s creation, if it cares about human dignity and speaks truthfully … I could go on.

One issue that’s very specific to the Welsh and Scottish elections is, of course, independence. We all know that this is a topic which can raise a great deal of passion – so I, as an English outsider of German descent, must tread very carefully indeed! And all I want to say is this: that, as a Christian, I believe that we are citizens of the world and mustn’t allow ourselves to get trapped by a strident nationalism; conversely we are citizens of our nation and we want to see it flourish. This is not a black-and-white – or even a green, red and white – issue! But it’s important.

So which, of all the imperfect political groups set before us, is the one that’s most likely to do the most good for the most people in our society? I honestly don’t know: I’ve come to my own conclusions which may well be different from yours. But I do think we all need to carefully, even prayerfully, consider where we are going to place our Xs next Thursday; remembering that we cast our vote, not selfishly and for ourselves, but for the good of the nation, for people loved by God. Let’s choose wisely!