Our natural desire for quick, immediate fun and enjoyment can really mess up our choices…and our long-term enjoyment and satisfaction.

I don’t know if that thought fits exactly, but that’s what I thought of when I read of Herodias this morning.

The king is pleased with her public performance, so he makes an incredible promise to her:

“Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee, unto half of my kingdom” (Mark 6:23).

Choose half the kingdom, of course! But where’s the immediate enjoyment in that?

So, the girl “went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist” (Mark 6:24).

And that’s what the girl chose!

Can you believe it?! She chose a dead head instead of half the kingdom.

How dead and foolish and short-sighted are my own choices?