Choices

Good Morning Kingdom Seekers,

Here's another 'devotional' that I sent out to the gals that I mentor. Hope it encourages you and prods you on to good works (it is unedited):

1/13/10

Hi Girls,

I talked with you a few days ago about ‘choice and time.’ I really want to focus on the topic of ‘the choices you make’ (or have made). It’s so important to our Christian maturity to make good God-honoring choices and decisions. Think about how many times in a day you have to make a choice or a decision about something. When I really get down to the nitty-gritty of it, I guess I make in a single day hundreds of decisions choices. What will my kids eat for breakfast, what will Caleb wear to school today and what is Josh going to wear out of the house today, what should I lay out in preparation for dinner tonight, what am I going to wear today, will I work on laundry today, work on Bob’s business paperwork, continue to get Christmas decorations put away, clean any room in the house that needs immediate attention (and they all do), go visit my mother, spend time studying God’s Word, etc. Hundreds of choices and decisions, minute by minute, have to be made everyday of my life. Some days for me it can get a little overwhelming; because no matter what I choose to give my time and energies to there are a dozen things that are being left undone. So, as part of my New Year’s goals I have to start making better choices with my time.

But, the things I just mentioned are everyday, mundane activities that we all have to make choices about. What I really want to talk to you about is making choices that are going to affect you long-term. Have you made decisions / choices in the past that you are still living with? What decisions / choices have you made and it is not only affecting you, but your kids and possibly your husband? Think back on some of your life choices and how they are affecting you now – either good or bad.

According to Dr. Paul Tripp we don’t make many ‘really big’ decisions in life, only about three or four – what will you pursue as a life-long career, who you will marry, how many children will you have, how will you prepare for your retirement. These are the biggies and from the time we decide what we want to do with these big decision they can have effects that will last a life-time. How important is it to make wise choices for ourselves; and maybe more importantly, for our children because everything we do affects them.

Stop and think about the bad decisions you’ve made and you’re still living with the effects of them. Maybe you chose to have pre-marital sex at a young age (and with a man that God did not intend to be your husband), produced one or two children and now the relationship is long over and your children are the victims of an absentee father and lack of good parenting from you because you have to work non-stop to support them. Or maybe you’ve spent money on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and paying off debt that was created due to bad choices and you have nothing to show for it, and now you’re financially busted and disgusted. You haven’t got enough money to ‘pay attention’ due to poor choices in your past. Think about who you’ve chose in the past to be your most intimate friends and all they’ve done is drag you down and have left you ‘high and dry.’ Think about who you hang around with now – are they an asset in your life, or a liability; are they someone who adds to your life or takes away?

Girls, as the New Year is getting underway, as adult, Christian women, we must make wise, godly choices for our lives and our families. I’m not telling you this in order to condemn you- Oh, no; never!!! The Bible tells us,”There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Only to prod you into becoming the wise, God-honoring woman that you were created to be. Trust me, I’ve made some bad decisions myself, and Oh, how I regret them.

But, you may be saying, ‘Charlotte, what can we do; it’s all in the past and I can’t make the decision over.’ True, but I want to tell you about something that I’ve done over my ‘bad decisions’ and I pray that you will take this bit of advise and incorporate it into your own life. The first thing I do when I realize that I have messed up is to ‘Repent’ before the Lord. Be very specific about what decision you made and the actions that followed that caused a negative effect in your life. For example, if you did not raise your children properly then tell God just that. Tell Him you messed up and it was not only a sin against Him, but against your children; because our children are a ‘major’ stewardship from God and we must make right decisions with this very precious commodity that God has entrusted into our care.

So, the first step is to repent! But, I know what you’re thinking, “Charlotte, that was all so long ago and I’ve accepted Christ since then. All my sins that have resulted from poor decision-making are under the blood of Christ and I have been forgiven. May sins have been cast into God’s forgetting sea, never to be remembered no more.” That’s true to the extent that God will not hold them against you concerning your salvation and your admittance into heaven. But, we still live with the affects of our sins even though we’ve been forgiven. It’s like giving your child enough money to get a good college education and they blow all the money on cars, vacations, and stuff. You may forgive them, but they will be flipping burgers instead of working in a high-rise office building, wearing a business suit, and making a 6 digit income. And what makes things like this so hard is when someone is not remorseful over their bad decision. We must, as we journey to Christian maturity and the heart of God, not be passive in this area and accept responsibility to our decisions and actions. We must repent; this is at the heart of true humility and humility is at the heart of the gospel.

We must in our pursuit of Christian maturity take responsibility for our sin even if it was before our salvation experience. Ask God to forgive you specifically for the bad choice you made and then there a second thing we can do... Our God is the God of yesterday, today, and forever. Did you see that – He is the God of yesterday!!! Our God has the ability to walk right into your past and redeem back to you what you messed up or foolishly gave away. Oh, how many times have I repented before the Lord in sack-cloth and ashes, and then asked Him for a do-over? How many times have I asked God to redeem back to me something I messed up due to a bad decision? More times than I care to admit!!!

Don’t ever forget that our God’s specialty is redemption. He can redeem back to you whatever is wrong, whatever needs to be straightened out, what needs to be fixed because of poor choices. Oh, let Him do it!!! I believe when we have come to the end of ourselves in this way, knowing that we cannot change the past, and we turn to Him in total repentance and dependence, He delights in ‘stepping up to the plate’ for one of His children. I believe that doing this sort of thing – taking responsibility of our sin, repenting of our sin, and then asking God to give us wisdom to make better choices the second time around (thank God, He’s the God of the second chance) is one of the most important ways to mature in Christ.

Also, from this point on, every decision must be bathed in prayer. No major decisions without prayer!!! I personally cannot navigate life’s rocky roads, the twists and turns, the ups and downs without a heavenly guide. I desperately need Someone who knows the road far better than I and can give me directions that will lead me on a smooth straight path. Oh, what peace can be found when we allow our blessed, heavenly Father to guide us through the decision-making processes of life. It’s like a divine GPS system.

Girls, we want to be mature, ‘wise,’ godly women. We want to possess something that we can pass on to the next generation. Let’s start by humbling ourselves before the throne of God in repentance, asking Him for His redemption, and then petitioning Him for His wisdom in making wise choices.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” James 1:5 niv

Be blessed today, and God glorified,
Charlotte