Choose to Live

“I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life,” Deuteronomy 30: 19-20

“I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom.” Moses will experience this soon, as he will be unable to enter the promise land. The choices we make in life everyday are about life and death. Is that too dramatic? Yes and no. Yes because we are bound to fail but God can always take our crooked paths and straighten them. No, because we have to choose to say yes to God, daily.  

Are we making decisions based on God’s will or our will? Are we allowing God to penetrate those dark places in our hearts and mind and illuminate them? Are we allowing him to transform us? We live in a world where every desire seems available to us, every need you could have should be met, everyone has a talent or gift displayed on social media. People seem to be living very much abundantly…but it is all distorted if those gifts, talents and desires are not orientated towards God.

Let us pause and think of our current appetites, wants and needs. Are they of God? Or is it of greed? Lust? Desperation? Do they bring glory and honor to God? Or am I ready Lord to put it to death? To surrender what I think is life and give it to you? This is what Jesus calls us to do, “daily.” To give up our trappings, what we believe are necessities, so that He can gives us the gift of a full life.  “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”(LK 9:23) Jesus asks us to put death those things that get in the way of our joy, loving the lord.

I can admit that this is the first time I have read this sentence and noticed the word, “daily.” Daily, is not only during lent, it is every day. Every day we must choose the abundant life that God has imagined, created and laid out for us…even if we cannot see it or even feel it on some days. There is hope in every new day. Say yes again. It is not always easy because God’s timing is His, and my way seems faster and easier, but no decision I have made without Him, outside of Him, was better.

“Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him, for that means life to you.” (Deut. 30: 20) Everyday allow yourself the space and time to ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom and bring those decisions (big or small) before the Lord. Allow God to transform your will so that it is conformed to His will for you. Choose to live and hold fast to him, for He is your life. 

Lord today we pray for our conversion, daily. For our hearts, ears and mind to be transformed by your love and wisdom. That we put to death, daily, the disordered appetites and thoughts that prevent us from loving you with our whole life. In Jesus’ name we pray amen.