Choices

https://odb.org/MY/2023/05/21/our-choices-matter

As we go through life, whatever age we are, we need to make choices. Some choices are easy, and some are difficult. But we usually choose something that in our view is the best choice for us. So if we were to choose a job, we would choose one that pays the best and gives us the most in career prospects. The ease of travelling to work is sometimes measured in terms of time and expense. Thus, for example, it’s ok to travel long and far if the pay and prospects are good.

But as believers, we ought to have another factor to consider when making choices. Is the choice we make in the will of God? Or put it another way, will the Lord be pleased with our choice? In this respect, there should be both the general as well as the specific will of God that we should look into. The first is our call to righteousness and holiness and the latter more His calling for us personally. Thus, in the case of Joseph, he wanted to remain upright before God, and thus, he avoided advances by Potiphar’s wife, and we know that, as a result, he suffered the consequences. But as the LORD was with him, God turned around his situation. Although Joseph landed in prison as a consequence of his choice to remain upright before the LORD, it became a place of opportunity for him to interpret the dream of Pharoah and, in the end, saved Egypt and his family back in Canaan from the coming 7-year severe famine.

As for God’s calling for our lives, besides the vocation that He had chosen for us, I think His call has more to do with His work than purely our physical well-being. We will not purposely be harmed or afflicted as a result of our choice for Him, but we probably can not avoid some hardship. In other words, a choice for His specific will for our life is not necessarily a choice for a tough life but will likely not be the one that is the most comfortable. Thus, if it involves a few hours of travel to another city on a Sunday to help out a work compared to another church just 15 mins away from home, the latter may not be the obvious choice to make.

As we grow in maturity in God, may we always have Him in our hearts for the choices we make, both in relation to His call to us to righteousness before Him as well as His plans and purposes for our lives. Always make a choice that puts us in the centre of His will so that we are always living in the glory of His presence while waiting for Jesus’s second coming.