Sunday, June 1, 2014
Choosing Life
Yesterday my wide and daughter prepared a picnic for us to go to a splash pad park near our home. It was a surprise because they wanted it to be an early Father’s Day celebration and they got everything together while I was taking a nap. We went there and played in the water and had a great time. The water was cold and it was 88 degrees out. We sat down to have the picnic dinner and they brought out the gifts the two of them had purchased and my daughter helped wrap. They were simple things – chap-stick, a DVD, my favorite chewing gum – but I really enjoyed that they had put this all together so quickly. It seemed like there was as much tape as there was wrapping paper, but that just made us all laugh as I worked hard to open them.
On the way home my wife asked if I enjoyed the picnic. I told her yes very much. Throughout the excursion I found myself thinking about each moment. In those moments of thought, I remember telling myself how much fun I was having and how comforting it felt to relax and enjoy these simple moments with them. I told my wife that I had been learning that what we experience is largely controlled by how we choose to experience it, and I was choosing to enjoy those moments. Much of life is about choosing. Moses spoke about this in telling the children of Israel how to live life in the Promised Land.
Dueteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
20 That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
We can choose to enjoy life with God, or not. We can choose to pursue believing in and trusting God, or not. It really is a matter of choosing. If we want to have joy and comfort, then Moses was right. Choose life!
Prayer
Father, we praise and exalt You as the Most High. Thank You for giving us the path to life. Thank You for Your mercy and grace. Forgive us when we do not choose life. Help us to find our way back to Yo when we stray from the path of life. Please send us today Your healing, deliverance, and overwhelming provision. In Jesus’ (Yeshua’s) name. Amen.