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Choosing…

To prepare for Sunday dinner, I made a crust-less Pumpkin Pie, Vanilla Wafer Pudding with chocolate chips and Brownies.  I watched my family painstakingly choose which dessert to eat.  My son followed his father’s example and combined Pumpkin Pie and Vanilla Wafer Pudding.  As a young mother, back in 1950’s, I learned that children should be allowed to make decisions.  So they chose their favorites at Dairy Queen visits, breakfast cereal, and had a lot of free play time.
Life is filled with choices – which always include consequences of each choice. Insignificant choices can reap life-changing consequences from the moment we stand on the playground and choose where to break the Red Rover, Red Rover, let John come over line.  Who we held hands with, how to hold the hands so they wouldn’t break were choices we made and the wrong choice gave us consequences of being led to the opposing line.
As life continues, the choices grow in scope and purpose as resulting consequences loom ever larger. 

Choosing friends, a vocation, a car, a house, a spouse become monumental choices that propel our lives into different paths.  Success in life is not the number of friends on facebook, the number of $$$ we are worth, or the CEO after our name.  Those are fleeting measures of our lives.  True measures of worth are captured in these verses by King Solomon.

The wise are glad to be instructed, but babbling fools fall flat on their faces.  People with integrity walk safely, but those who follow crooked paths will be exposed.  People who wink at wrong cause trouble, but a bold reproof promotes peace.  Proverbs 10:8-10

Seventy-eight years ago, I made a choice that changed my life.  At the age of eight, I realized I wanted to go to Heaven.  I gave my heart to Jesus and was baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  I didn’t understand then, and will never understand the full mystery of the joy and peace that entered my heart at that moment.  I learned early that not everyone would understand that choice.  The next day at school when I shared my news with ‘friends’, they scoffed and said, “So?”

Choosing Jesus changed my life in many ways.  All other choices I made, were shaped and formed by that moment when I was eight years old.  What have I learned from that moment of choosing Jesus?
  • Only Jesus was sent to the earth to die on the cross to become a sacrifice for our sins, and was raised again.  John 3:16
  • Only Jesus and the Lord wait to show their love and compassion to us. Isaiah 30:18
  • Only Jesus can teach us how to love like He does and forgive others. I John 4:17
  • Only Jesus knows the way of peace in our hearts. Philippians 4:7
  • Only Jesus leads us in His Way – for He is the Truth and Life and the Way.  John14:6
  • Only Jesus gives us rest and strengthens us in our weakness.  Matthew 11:28
  • Only Jesus promises to take us home to live with Him – John 14:1-4  
  • Only Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  Matthew 16:16
  • Only Jesus knows how to teach us how to love and His way.  Psalm 119:135
  • Only Jesus will give us all we need.  Matthew 6:33
  • Only Jesus gives us light and not darkness.  John 12:46
Seek with all your hearts and choose Jesus!  He is there waiting for you.  He will listen as we pray to Him and we will find Him when we search for Him.  Choosing His Way is not a one-time thing.  Each day there is ever a deeper way in which we choose Him and Him alone.  Jesus gives us Hope to face each day.  He forgives us when we stumble and renews His love for us.

May we open our hearts and choose Jesus and follow Him in all things.  He alone brings us peace, joy, comfort and rest.  Blessed is the Name of Jesus!

 When we make the decision to follow Jesus, we have chosen to walk a narrow way of obedience, faith and trust in the only one, Jesus, who brings us safely Home to live with Him for an eternity.

What is the next step….For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!  For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.  Ephesians 5:8-9

Old age has produced the need for nightlights in our home for our physical walk at night to lessen stumbling.  The spiritual light that comes from Jesus needs no batteries or plug-ins or new bulbs.  His light gives us guidance to find our way on this journey through the darkness of this world.

† – Who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose.  Psalm 25:12
† – Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.  Romans 6:16
† – Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!  Deuteronomy 30:19


 Comments? eacombs@eacombs@cox.net