We are all given choices in life. When I was younger, it was about choosing to obey my mom when she said to wait to eat the piece of candy until after dinner or to not wait. I could choose to do my homework or not to do it. As I got older, I eventually had choices to make about what to wear and how I wanted to spend my money. I got to choose whether or not I wanted a job and how hardworking I was going to be. All of these things are choices that we probably all had to make at one point in our lives.
But, I believe it is not a “given” that we have these choices.
In America, it is simply a part of the culture to think we have the right to choose whatever we want. We all think we can say whatever we want, do whatever we want and be who we want to be just because we can. But, I believe that this is not what God was conveying when He created the universe.
In the beginning, Adam and Eve were created and, you know the story, they were both given a choice: whether or not to obey God’s commands or to simply disobey. Obviously, they disobey, just like any other human being on the face of this earth would have done, because they were just “people bein’ people” (direct quote from my mom). It is just absolutely crazy to know this, with e v e r y t h i n g that God provided, they STILL decided that they were just going to do whatever they wanted.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat EVERY tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17
Again, God gave them every single tree in the ENTIRE garden, but the temptation, curiosity, and personal desire took over, “it was a delight to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6). The exact second that their eyes were no longer fixed on God, the quicker Satan decided to slip in and distract them.
I can relate to Eve so much. Even when God’s voice is so crystal clear to me, I still continue to choose what I desire. For example, I walk around the school every morning just to wake up and pray for the day ahead. I usually have my hot tea in hand to keep warm and I like to keep to myself in the mornings because I am so not a morning person. After about the first week of being here at the school, I noticed that one of the students from one of my classes got to school around 6:40am every morning, sitting in the canteen usually on his phone or eating. Jesus spoke to me right away that I was supposed to go sit with him in the mornings but I thought it would be weird or awkward and I simply just didn’t want to sacrifice my morning time to silently sit with this boy. Jesus has told me every single morning since but I have continued to choose to take the easy way out by not putting myself in an awkward position, until this morning. I finally went this morning and, of course, it was awkward, but it was exactly where Jesus had wanted me all along. I will probably never see the fruit or even understand why God wanted me there, but that’s not for me to worry about.
This brings me to my next point of just how reliant and dependent on God we should WANT to be. In America, we simply just don’t need God as much as other places in the world. It just is what it is. We don’t need to rely on God for water, food, or shelter unless something dramatic happens in our lives, those things are pretty much a given. Like in Colombia, there was a family of 8 who was raised by the oldest sister of only 14 years old. The only time they would get a meal is when they came to our camp on the weekends or by scavenging food any other ways. Here in Thailand, there are these little towns called Hill Tribes where the whole tribe is working together daily to provide enough food for their families. The tribe that we visited was lucky enough to have an entire water pump system put in so they were (mostly) guaranteed running water but it still had to be boiled to be able to drink it. I am not disregarding any poverty that is going on in America (AT ALL) but I am wanting to create an awareness to all the people who are able to read this blog right now because that probably means that you aren’t praying for it not to rain so that water doesn’t leak into your house.
Something that I am also learning through this and as I am learning to be constantly communicating with Jesus, I realized that I can’t be reliant on God’s voice but God Himself. Being able to hear God’s voice is a gift!
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17
I can’t become dependent on the gifts that God gives me, that is so not the reason why He blesses us with His perfect gifts, but I must have faith IN God. So bringing things back into full circle, God, oh so graciously, gives us a choice. Him or not Him. It is something I have to repeatedly do daily, momently, and minutely. I have the choice between comfort and discomfort in every situation. But, if you take one thing from this giant jumble of words, it would be to remember that God already chose you. He chose you when He created the world. He chose you when He sent His son down to earth to die for all of our sins.
And, He chooses you today.
