Choices.
The Christian walk is full of them, daily and hourly. Moment
by moment we must make choices.
Lately God has been teaching me just how important my daily
choices are. It is imperative that I make wise choices for the big decisions,
but recently God has been showing me how important the small choices are. These
are the choices that you might not even think about. These are the things in
the little moments, such as:
Will I choose to trust the Lord, or will I take matters into
my own hands?
Will I trust Him, or will I let myself worry and fret about
whatever is going on rather than placing it in His hands?
Will I choose to hope, or will I despair?
Will I choose to give in to sinful anger, or will I release
it into the Lord’s hand?
Will I choose to focus my thoughts on things that are pure,
true, noble, lovely (Phil. 4:8), or will I allow my mind to wander wherever it
wills?
Will I allow myself to indulge in self-pity, or will I let
it go and refocus my thoughts on the joy that is found in Jesus?
Will I choose to be patient, or insist on having things my
own way?
Will I choose to be thankful, or to grumble?
Will I choose joy?
The list of choices could go on and on. Every day is filled with them. In each moment
we can choose to live for ourselves or to live for God. God has been gently
reminding me of these choices over the past few weeks.
Last week I was anxiously waiting for news of a decision,
but I continued to have to wait, and wait, and wait… I was nervous, and a
little worried about what the outcome of the decision would be. For the full
first day of waiting, I’ll be honest, I would pray asking God to give me peace
about the situation, but I didn’t relinquish my worries to Him. I was still
clinging tightly to them, as if I had control over what the outcome would be if
I worried about it enough (HA!). God kept reminding me through my quiet times
and through prayer that I needed to give it ALL to Him. And finally, I did. I
released the situation, the upcoming decision, and my worries all to Him. I
chose to trust Him. The peace that came after that small choice was wonderful;
I knew that God had everything under control. And you know what the wonderful
thing is about our God, our heavenly Father? He doesn’t withhold His peace or
ask, “What took you so long?” No. He gives His peace willingly, lovingly. He
caringly takes the situations, the worries, the stresses out of our hands once
we give them over to Him, but we have to CHOOSE to give them over in to His
open and waiting hands.
Just yesterday, God reminded me of another choice that I can
make every day, the choice to be thankful, rather than whiny and upset. I was
at the dentist, one of my not-so-favorite things to be honest. In past visits,
I have definitely not been the nicest or most thankful patient. Instead, I start
thinking about all the places I’d rather be, all the things I’d rather be
doing, and so on. Yesterday I started in that habit, thinking about the better
things I could be doing, when God started whispering, Be thankful. That’s when the choice came in, whether I was going to
keep on whining or start thanking God. This time I chose to be thankful, and surprisingly
when I got started I was able to think of quite a few things to be thankful
about being at the dentist.
I know that in coming days I’ll make the wrong choices, but
it’s my prayer that I’ll start thinking more about the little, right choices I
can make every day to follow Christ, and that I’ll keep making choices that
will draw me closer to God.
Francesca Battistelli said in her song “It’s Your Life,”
“The world is
watching you
Every day the choices
you make
Say what you are and
who
Your heart beats for
It's an open door
It's your life”
The choices were making say a lot about us. So today, choose
to trust. Choose to hope. Choose to be joyful, and choose to be thankful.
