Choices

Life is filled with choices. Some good some bad. Some that benefit you, some that hurt you. Some that still leave a lot of questions unanswered and some that answer every question you never knew you had.

I have been reflecting on choices a lot this week. I am preaching for the first time on Sunday at a retirement village here in Olathe. I am excited to share the word of God with this group of people and even more excited to actually preach. Shhhh, don't tell them they are my first!

The scripture for this week is from Genesis. It is the story of Rebekah and Isaac's two sons, Jacob and Esau. My sermon focus on the conflict that they were born into and why God chose certain people throughout the Old Testament to be leaders of great nations.

Throughout the sermon prep and time I have had this week reflecting I have really thought a lot about choices.

God gave us the ability of free will for a reason. God didn't want us to all be puppets and God be the Master. That isn't how it works. God's people continued to disappoint God throughout the Bible b/c of freewill b/c of their ability to make choices in their lives. Some of these choices led to war, some of these choices led to adultery, some of these choices led to death. Yet some of these choices led to freedom, grace, mercy, love and a resurrected Christ.

My thoughts this week have led me to the choices we all make in our lives. The choices on who we marry, the choices on what kind of jobs we choose to have and the choices we make on how to live our lives. Do we choose all these things while keeping in mind that God wants us to live life abundantly and live it fully? Do we all keep God in the front of our decision making?

My guess is no for most of us but it is a place I am really striving to be in. I want to live the life that God has given me with abundance. I want to live the life God has given me with my heart wide open and able to offer grace, love and mercy to all those in my life that I will meet through ministry and personally.

I wish we could all choose things that make us the happiest. That we could all work our dream jobs or not work at all, that we could ensure that our children grow up healthy and with everything they need to be successful. I wish that we could never worry about cancer, disease and violence. I wish that we could all choose the life we want and not have to worry about money. I wish so many things but these things are not realistic.

So how in a world where we have to choose to do things we don't want to do in order to survive financially and to put a roof over our heads do we wake up every morning and live the life of abundance God wants for us?

This is a choice as well. We can choose to be negative, we can choose to be critical of others, we can choose to be lonely, we can choose to "settle" OR we can choose to find the positives even in the negatives, we can choose to look at each person and say 'they really are doing the best they can', we can choose to be in healthy relationships with people that are make our lives full and we can choose to not settle for anything less than all of that.

God created the ability for each of us to make choices in our lives. God could have decided to not give us freewill but life would be all the same and not interesting in that scenario.

Choose to be happy. Choose to find hope in the darkness. Choose to live a life that you LOVE, that others look at and say "I want to be like HER". Choose to be that person that inspires other people. That is the choice I am making today. I am choosing abundance because that is what God wants for me and I refuse to settle for ANYTHING less.