Choice

Originally written and posted on MySpace July 31, 2006

It has been a while since I was here and much to my surprise, people have noticed (Hi Pam :). I will always be an infrequent poster here so I am not going to make up excuses.

I was talking to a really good friend of mine the other night while sitting out on my back porch. We were talking about life and choices and direction and definition and ... well you name it. We were truly enjoying each other's company.

One of the things we talked about was choices. When I read in Genesis that "God created us in His own image" I often wonder what that means. I often wonder if it means that He gave us the ability to make choices. We clearly do not operate by instinct. We clearly do not always make good choices. Of all of the things that God gave us in our creation I believe that this is the single most powerful.

Consider the power you have. You get to choose whether or not to have faith. You get to decide to do right or wrong. You can even choose to disregard God all together and decide for yourself what is moral and what is not. Were I God I am not sure I would give me those choices. I feel fairly certain that, were I God, you would disregard Me at your own peril; my lightening bolt would always be hot. Yet He not only gives us choice but is patient with us as we use and misuse this blessing.

Choice. It is not always a Heaven or Hell thing. I see unbelievable power in those choices. But I also see fantastic freedom in God giving us the power to choose who we are going to be. In another entry in this blog I describe some of the choices I have made. What I may not have made clear is that not all of those choices are natural for me. Many of them are counter to what I would be if I did not have the ability to decide who I am. But God gave me that ability and I would be foolish not to take and use that blessing.

Another thing that I did not make clear is that I have not successfully become what my choices say that I am. I write my choices in a tense of completeness but they are, in many places, still goals. Some things I am much closer on and some I have a ways to go. That is not the important thing, though. The important thing is that I have exercised the gift God gave me by making the choices. I choose who I am.

I suspect that I could go on and on with this. If ever you want to see me animated get me talking about this topic! Almost every aspect of life is a choice. God gave us incredible power with that blessing. We are foolish beyond all imagination not to take full advantage of it. Thank you for being there as I remind myself of this.