You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.
1 Thessalonians 2:2-3 NLT
Becoming a Christian disciple demands a choice. As we grow and become conscious of life, we recognise the need to make choices. We learn the challenge of temptation, which incites us to make questionable choices. These may disadvantage another unfairly, bully or abuse. We discover making decisions is not easy and we have to weigh up the possible outcomes as well as develop a mature understanding of our own vulnerabilities.
I have a tendency towards avarice that I have to watch. This is focused around knowledge; I want to understand everything within my environment and beyond. This can lead to defensiveness and secrecy. Knowledge is only valuable if it improves my ability to make good choices. I take what I learn and seek to identify behaviours that are the product of my human fracture. My choice is to bring these to God, to share with those I trust and to determine a plan to walk out of the unhelpful aspects of my fractured self.
The great enemy of choices is procrastination. This is an inability to make a choice. It can feel comfortable to recognise where a choice must be made, so I’m enlightened, but by not making that choice I’ve not disturbed my status quo. How often do we hear and read things and God speaks? We see clearly what we are to do, yet we procrastinate. The moment passes, we avoid the choice yet congratulate ourselves upon having seen the need for such a choice. Like Israel we can settle for the discipleship of the desert instead of the promised land.
QUESTION
Have you clearly identified a choice to be made but have failed to act?
PRAYER
Help me to be honest with you and myself about the choices I face, and strengthen me today to move ahead with you into your plans and purposes for my life
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