Most of the things we do in life is about: choices. From the time we wake up we can choose to: get up or not, eat breakfast or not, brush our teeth or not, be grumpy or happy, dress in black or white, go to work or not, dress the kids or not and the list can go on and on......Sometimes we make stupid choices and we have to live with the bad concequences of that bad choice. Sometimes we make very good choices and we will live with some pretty good concequences. No matter what choice we will make there will be concequences for it.
God is a God that gave us choices. He is a gentleman, he never forces us to do things. We will always have a choice. God even gave His son a choice. Jesus could have chosen not to go to the cross and die. How do we know he had a choice. Well, the Bible says that, Jesus was in the garden praying and asking God to "remove this cup from him", that is the choice of going to the cross, but Jesus looked at the options and said that "let not my will be done, but Yours". So he was obedient to His father. But he knew that he had to suffer for making that choice, he knew that he had to go through injustice with beatings and mockings from the whole world. Yet, he chose the Fathers will. How cruel you might think, a father sending his son to the cross. But if you look at the end result of that sacrifice, that is that, "anyone who call on that name shall be saved", Jesus did not see the pain he was about to go through, he was focusing on the promise that God gave him. The promise was that of a more glorious ending than that of the suffering. God promised that He would raise Jesus from the grave on the third day to be seated on God the Fathers right hand side so that all man shall be saved and go through to heaven if people believed in what God did was true. Jesus kept his eyes focused on the promise rather than the pain.
Sometimes we have to make choices in life, and sometimes it is very hard choices. And even if we know that the choices we make sometimes is not going to benefit others, we choose a choice that will benefit our own agenda because we feel we are worth it. But sometimes it is not our own selfish choices that will benefit yourself in the long run.
Sometimes we for instance have to make a choice for our kids future that might not be beneficial for our own feelings but we will make it anyway and our kids will have it better. Maybe we will make choices that hurt us, but will benefit others. It is our own choice.