Choosing

Many are those who will find this post hard to stomach, but I've been thinking over things since my last post, and I want to elaborate on a few points for certain folk. You know the ones - making their own way, never seeming to live according to anything but their own wants or wishes, all the while thinking that rules aren't for them, and once transgressed, seemingly never facing the consequences due them for their choices. For them choices come with two possibilities and their way always wins out, the other being seen as pointless, based on ridiculous ideology, or just plain stupid. Their arguments are simply a means to justify their ends using faulty reasoning and when that doesn't solve their dilemma, then they resort to disrespecting the other person's views. You know the ones I speak of. We are (still, at times) those people.

Choose life. God commanded Moses to speak the words of covenant renewal to the Israelites in Moab before Moses died. In chapter 30 we read:

"For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 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, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."

Choose life.

Choose hope. Right after my diagnosis, I went looking for a website that would possibly describe the different cancer awareness stuff, including a calendar of cancer awareness. I got one better: choosehope.com. This site, begun by three ladies touched by cancer, sells all sorts of stuff for those fighting cancer of all types and a portion of their sales goes toward cancer research and services. I may disagree with their particular order of what is important, but I do agree that choosing hope is not only proper, it is the only way to live. Hope for healing, hope for right relationships, hope for real, lasting peace. We just must realize that the only hope for these and many other wrongs to be righted is Jesus' return, or our passing to paradise. Our hope is in Christ alone who is our salvation and who has secured for us eternal life. Just so you know, February is National Cancer Prevention Month and March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Choose hope.

Choose to see. A book Cynthia received for Christmas is "Choosing to See," by Mary Beth Chapman, wife of singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman. Cynth has just begun the book, but I don't think I'll spoil anything by guessing that the book will be about choosing to see God in the difficult things as well as the good. That is really what this life is about - choosing to see God when life doesn't make any sense, when there is no peace, when there is disappointment and discouragement, even when God seems far off. God is in the little things as much as in the big (remember Elijah in 1 Kings 19:9 and following). We just have to be willing to do as the Psalmist says in chapter 46, verse 10:

"Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

We also should remember Job's spirit and attitude near the conclusion of that book:

Then Job answered the LORD and said: "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.' I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

(You ought to read chapters 38-41 of Job to get a look at this Sovereign God.). Choose to see.

In the final analysis, God is sovereign over all, even those whose choices are contrary to God. God will be given the praise he is due, Philipians 2:9:

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

It is just a matter of when. In the interim, life is full of choices, and in the bad as in the good, I pray we all we hold fast and choose life, choose hope and choose to see.

Tonight we had a meal to lift my spirits: Spaghetti la Watkins with beautiful and delicious salad and bread with garlic butter.