Choosing

Boy! I hate making decisions - always have done and I guess by now I never will be comfortable in that particular arena.

I reckon decisions are made every day sometimes quite unconsciously. We make decisions about what to eat, what to wear, where to go, who to see and the list goes on and on.

So in the long run I guess we all make decisions.

On saying that I know deep down that some decisions are huge! We have a struggle with these big decisions striving to make sure we get them right.

Making life and death decisions is frightening and nerve-racking to say the least and making a decision to hand your life over to Jesus is ONE BIG decision that I personally have never regretted.  But for some, I know, that decision has been a struggle that has required heaps of soul searching, contemplation and discipline.

Regardless of how you felt when and if you accepted Jesus as Lord in your life,  making that decision is a life-changing event.

Choosing a Christian life can be very fulfilling but what happens in the bad times? As you aware bad times will come regardless of whether you are a Christian or not.

What happens when your life goes pear-shaped - when your child dies, when your marriage collapses, when you are abandoned by your partner, when you lose your job or your possessions?

When we have to wrestle with life - when it ceases to be the kind of life it was meant to be what then?

These times can test the most faithful of us.

That's when we get to make real decisions and choose.

We can choose to get angry. We can choose to walk away, Even pleading with God that eternal question WHY??

We pray and plead with God to answer in the way we want but often our prayers seemingly go the other way and so different from what we prayed for.

So yes! we can choose so many different paths to take when things go so badly for us or there is a better way:-

We can choose to simply trust our Lord and Saviour. Trusting Him even though His ways are not our ways. To know there is some sort of purpose in the extreme pain.

We will still ask WHY? Of course we will but we can trust our God to make some sort of sense out of all of this.

God knows the end from the beginning - He is not with us wondering what is going to happen from one minute to the next with plans A, B, C & D up His sleeve on the off-chance that things planned will go awry.

Of course not - He is omnipotent and Holy - nothing escapes Him.

So when bad things happen - he knows about it - the thing is for us to keep trusting even though we may never know the real reason for it.

Years ago friends of ours lost their 3 month old daughter to cot death. Rebecca was their only daughter and of course they were devastated.

They could have chosen to blame God like millions of others have done, They could have chosen to get angry and walk away with their pain held closely to them and turned their backs on God.

In that horrible time they cried out to God "WHY?" Of course they did. But at the same time, they chose to throw themselves into the everlasting arms of the Lord and simply pray "we can't do this on their own"  - They needed God to see them through that time.

They needed to know that were not alone, that He was near them. They will never know why she was taken from them - They will never know what life held for that precious little angel but they did know that God held them through that time and their trust in Him was real and sustaining.

So how about you? - what do you choose in the bad times - you can choose to get angry - you can choose to walk away, in fact you can choose any number of avenues but...

As a Christian you can find peace during these tough times - times that can often drive others to suicide. Peace driven by the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit.

So right in the very centre of the most devastating experiences, deep down in our very being are God's gifts of peace, joy and above all hope.