Abram and Lot have many flocks and possessions. Their herdsmen fall into conflict, and the land can no longer sustain their animals together in the same place. Abram therefore proposes that they separate. He lets Lot choose where to go. That is striking in itself: Abram, to whom the land was promised, does not insist on making the first choice.
Notice the words Genesis uses for what comes next. Lot “lifted up his eyes” and saw the well-watered plain of the Jordan (Genesis 13:10). It looked like the garden of the LORD and like the land of Egypt. It is understandable that the plain was attractive. The text does not simply say that choosing fertile land is wrong. But the narrator also mentions Sodom and, soon afterward, the wickedness of its inhabitants. What looks promising is not the whole story.
Only after Lot has separated from him does the LORD speak to Abram again: “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art” (Genesis 13:14). Both men lift up their eyes. Lot sees land he can choose; Abram hears from God which land He will give. The difference lies not in their eyes, but in the words that follow.
God repeats His promise of land and offspring. And Abram is also given something to do: “Arise, walk through the land” (Genesis 13:17). Receiving does not leave him motionless. He may go, cross the land and live there without claiming the fulfilment as his own achievement. At Hebron he builds another altar.
So I do not read this story as a prohibition on making choices. I read it as an invitation to examine them. Are we led only by what looks attractive now? Or do we also listen to the Word that teaches us what we cannot secure for ourselves?