Choices

Today's choices were everyday-kind-of-choices with a twist. Illness affects one's plans: sleeping and eating and meeting and going. And although it isn't a rock-your-world change (as countless friends and family are facing even now), the wonderful thing about our God is that His all-encompassing plan works despite sick children, flat tires, inconsiderate people, and  unpredictable unknowns.

How does it work? I don't know. But over the years I have learned a few things about facing unexpected days and moments:

1) There are right and wrong choices. My discernment of what is right and wrong grows as I practice what God says (remember, practice means, "I will blow it") Hebrews 5:14. In the Old Testament, King David testified that we experience God's goodness as we obey/do what He says. It's not just a head-game, it's a do-game (Psalm 119:59-61). The unexpected moments of each day are an opportunity to practice what is right and learn what is wrong.

2) God is most honored when I depend on Him instead of worrying, manipulating or falling back on "plan B" (Psalm 131, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 1:2-8). It's okay not to know what's going to happen next or how a situation is going to resolve. No one expects me to--it would be unrealistic to know the final play on the first down. Only one Person knows with certainty, and He's 100% trustworthy.

3) The uncertain moments of life are not so much about doing as being. The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) are character traits, not "thou shalts?" They aren't things you and I could conjure or cajole on our best days. They are fruit of the Spirit, not fruit of the me. My natural tendencies are quite opposite (Galatians 5:19-21, 26). But as I pray and lean on the Lord for strength, wisdom and guidance my response will be one of love (not anger), joy (not fear), peace (not anxiety), patience (not irritability), kindness (not selfishness), goodness (not spite), faithfulness (not flight), gentleness (not harshness), and self-control (not self-indulgence).

When uncertainty comes, plans change, and I'm feeling a bit confused, God has given direction for making choices--choices about 1) doing what's right, 2) depending on Him and 3) responding with His character. Change is a certainty; Christlikeness our destiny.

Not Enough Time

She and I bent over, breaking brittle stems of straw flowers and purple statice from her dusty Wyoming garden, mountains towering in the distance. Hands full, Melissa stood, pressed a fist above her hip and arched her back, "There's not enough time...”

A little boy, new to town, visited their Vacation Bible School. He was the kind of boy, she said, who trailed trouble like Pigpen trailed dust. “He and his family were killed in an accident that Sunday. It was Thursday when he trusted Christ,” her voice failed. 

When life swirls and it seems that those things which need to be done won’t, I remember Melissa's dark brown eyes, tears running down her freckled cheeks. "There's just not enough time to reach them all."

May we never lose the urgency of loving and serving, reaching others with the good news of Jesus' substitutionary death, trusting that He will sovereignly direct our steps.

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!  And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.” (John 4:34-38)

It's All Good, Even When It's Bad

I just finished reading Romans 8 and this is what I learned: it's all good. Even when it's bad.
Despite tribulation
              distress
              persecution
              nakedness
              famine
              peril
              sword
              slaughter
It's not good because it's good. It's good because God says it is. These things will happen, expect them. But God is bigger; His plan is comprehensive. It stretches from eternity past to eternity future. His love is a certainty.
Your life profile will include a mind that was set on fleshly, worldly things. It will include suffering, living in a world subjected to futility, inward groaning for a redeemed body. God knows.
So He has already done a couple of things.
1) He sent a spiritual Guide and Compass to direct our prayers (Romans 8:26-27)
2) His past provision through Christ has eternal consequences (Romans 8:29)
3) His present and future provision for us moves from one into the other (Romans 8:30)
4) He sealed it all, proving His love and intent, through the death of His one and only Son, Jesus.
Because of this, nothing in our experience happens apart from God's sovereign hand. He loves me. He chose this path, today's path, for His purpose: that I would be conformed to the image of Jesus.  Other things would be more comfortable, more pleasant, more enjoyable, but not more Divine. What could be better?
So come what may, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved (past tense with present and future application!) us.