This past
month has been a HUGE learning experience for me.
At the end of it all, I have learned three basic things, one of which I
will post here: that our lives are full of choice. It is our choice. What is?
Pretty well everything. When we
get up, if we shower, if we wear orange or blue, what we eat, how we treat the
family, how we get to work, how we react to unexpected things, if we eat that
chocolate bar or the salad… etc. Even if
we smile at that stranger. It’s all a
choice.
God wanted us
to have a free will. He doesn’t force us
to love Him or control all our decisions.
Why? I can only guess. Who wants someone to love them because they
can’t choose not to? Who wants a
programmed robot- there is no pleasure in that?
Imagine a child doing the dishes without being asked to help. Wouldn’t that be nice? So much better than forcing the task to be
done.
We choose to
love another person or remain angry at them when they hurt us. We choose to break the law by speeding
because we chose to sleep in longer and are late now. We chose to wear that red hat that flew off
and distracted that old man who walked into the road without looking and almost
get hit by a car whose driver chose to drink boiling coffee which poured on his
lap from breaking to miss the man… It’s
all choice.
We can choose
to say hi to God when we wake up, say genuine grace instead of rush through,
spend our coffee time reading the Word instead of the news, choose a Christian
movie instead of the comedy that has some inappropriate humour or teaches us
worldly attitudes. We can choose to allow that driver that cut us off to ruin
our mood or bless him instead believing he misjudged the distance. We can choose to live within the light in
God’s kingdom or in the dark, lifeless kingdom of the devil. It is
our choice.
Remember, Eve
was deceived but Adam choose to eat fully aware it was wrong (1Tm. 2:4). Some kings of the Bible chose to do evil
while others chose to do right. The
Pharisees chose to hate Jesus, but He chose to love them, fighting to open
their eyes that they might see the truth.
We make hundreds of choices a day.
Are they choices that feed our flesh, our earthly pleasures, or ones
that feed our spirit and store up treasures in heaven (Mt. 6:20)?
(Moses) choosing rather to suffer affliction with the
people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time, Hb. 11:25
Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any
of his ways, Pr. 3:31
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that
you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice
and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days… Dt. 30:19,20
...choose this day whom you will serve... Js. 24:15
God allows us
to make the choices we do (turn right or go straight through). Most of the time, it is not important for Him
to redirect us. But if God told us to go
left, would we do it? What if He told us
to eat better, would we still eat that chocolate bar? If He said to spend more time with our
daughter would we- even if she’s being nasty?
Do we try to follow His ways for living and speaking that are in the
Word or do we not even know the Word because we chose everything else to read
and watch instead of the Word?
In 2Sm. 24:12,
God gives David three choices for punishment after His adultery and
murder. David chooses the one that is
all in God’s hand. Notice that our
choices can affect other people negatively.
David’s choice to commit adultery then to murder killed other
people. How are our choices in the way
we act affecting other people? Every
time we choose something that feeds our flesh, we are feeding the enemy’s
kingdom, giving them (albeit) a little victory.
Every time we choose God, love, the Word, to do right, we are choosing
to love God more than ourselves. We are
choosing life.
Therefore choose life!