The Weight of Choices

In the midst of spiritual warfare over the past couple of days, I've found myself pondering it in a different way than I have before. I am clearly seeing that the choices I make and the things I do have an effect no matter what it is. That is a given. It's been interesting over the past couple of days thinking about the choices I make out of obedience and love for God and how those choices aren't an easy road. There are many paths that I can take, but always one that is the highest that God ordains. Because I have chosen that path before, it's next to impossible to choose anything other than that. It's tasting and seeing that the Lord is good on that path though difficult. Sometimes this is seen during the time and others in hindsight. Yet in the times I have chosen the path God has ordained, I always look back and see what God has done, leaving me with no regrets of choosing such a path though it was incredibly difficult at the time And that's what I must remember in the midst of difficult paths.

Because it comes back to something incredibly simple: my choices have an effect no matter what they are. The choices out of obedience and love to God provide a richer, fuller path that I will surely see Him in, even though the battle with Satan and flesh is tough. The choices I make because of my flesh, being tired or not wanting to journey on that difficult path, Satan surely gets his foothold in me and either eats me up or makes me incredibly apathetic. In that I am distant from God because of my lack of obedience, or moreso, love and trust that He knows best regardless of how difficult the path is.

You know, so often it's easy to look at becoming a Christian as something we signed up for, like we joined a club and it should be all fun and games. And sometimes it's definitely tempting to want that. But I've been coming back to the fact that being a Christian means being just that: a follower of Christ. In that, we are to lay our lives down for His sake. It is not an easy task, but we should be reassured that He has been there in every way in our place. He's not telling us to do something He doesn't know full well what it entails. He's telling us to do the same as He did because He's been there-and even more so, He knows what obedience's results bear. I believe it is better to walk blindly in the light of our salvation rather than blindly in the darkness when who knows what could cause us to stumble.

This life does not bear easy things or situations or lessons, regardless of who you are. It's going to be difficult no matter what. But this life does bear a choice: to walk with God or not to. We can choose the light or darkness. When I come back to this in the midst of the choices I make and the impact it bears, I find that regardless, it is still better to be in the light, because it is there I have God on my side. It is better to be obedient because He has been there. It is better because in the light, there is full presence of love, and in the darkness, there is none of this at all.

As believers, we are promised trials and tribulations, and never received a promise that this life would be easy.

But we have the promise of Christ through the Father...and that should always be more than enough.