- I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live...
While reading the Shack I was struck with the idea that God allows us independence, and freedom, but gives us in our free will the choice to be dependent and reliant on him. If there was no choice, we'd be slaves, trapped, puppets for his mere pleasure. But the Freedom in Christ exists in our free will deciding to lay down our expectations, our desires, our wants. It allows us to take our needs to him, instead of illegitimately trying to meet them with things of our own design.
Why is it such a hard choice... I think about the struggles that I have witnessed in the past few years. Impossible circumstances, pain, death and dying, financial crisis, I think about the process, the grieving, the surrendering, the laying down, the resurrection, the life.
Is it possible that life is birthed out of the death, that at the end of ourselves, our best shot, when we fall short and aren't able to make it on our own, that at the end of our rope, we find life. Could this be what it means to choose, to choose life in the middle of what feels like a curse to find freedom and contentment and peace and joy that is not dependent on circumstance?
Could it mean that its a daily, sometimes hourly choice? That when we are afraid, we choose life. When we are angry, we chose life. When we want to give up, we chose life. When we are hurting, we chose life. When we are dying, we chose life. When we are crying, we chose life. When we are confused, we chose life. When we don't know what to do, we chose life. When we are helpless, we chose life.
I choose life. Today I choose life. This hour, I choose life. I recognize the blessings and the curses, and I chose life.
Hi Heather Feather,
ReplyDeleteI am just joining your blog and love it. I love reading the things you think about. You are such a deep thinker, so sensitive to the things around you. I am so proud of the wonderful young lady you have become. I am so proud to know you and to just thinking of who you are: a Godly young lady, a wife, a mother, my brothers baby girl, a sister, a friend, and my beautiful niece.
Some things we don’t understand until we ourselves have our own babies and start raising them. We think of how we were raised and judge, we judge until we ourselves are in their place raising our own little ones. We wonder if we are raising them to the best of our ability, we wonder who they will become and, we are in wonder of them. We stand back and watch as you teach your own children and as you start teaching us. Life is truly a cycle. We watch and we learn as life passes by.
Keep up the good work. Enjoy reaching out as others are reaching in. Hearts touching hearts, lives touching lives, needs touching needs.
My love to you always,
Susan
This reminds me a lot of the Rick Joyner's book. He talked about the Tree of Life vs the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He wanted us to eat of the tree of life, but not the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He said that God did not want us to know good and evil because he wanted us to come to him and let him to us what had life in it and what didn't. Yet we fight it don't we. We are searching for another formula or grid to follow rather then depending on God and being intimate with Him. I am so challenged by that. Laying down my knowledge to hear from the giver of life and the author of life. I feel cautious saying this because I don't want to run off and do crazy things and abandon my knowledge. I guess that is why we still need to stay in the written word of God. I just think so much of what God gives us he gives so we can be close to Him and know Him and my tendency is to take it and run from Him because I know think I have the answers. I guess my challenge is to have sensitivity to God's direction in knowing where the life is. Lord help us! :)
ReplyDeletei didn't know you had a blog. why am i just finding out now. cool stuff.
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