Choices
So far this past month we as a church have been going through the book of Genesis, looking the foundation of our earth, our religion and the scriptures. We have entitled our series, "New Beginnings." Not because this study is "new" or its thoughts are "new," simply because God gives us new beginnings everyday in our lives and we seek to live like he desires us to. In tern, we should desire to be a people with our hearts and thoughts in the right place. Ultimately, we are all on a journey in our lives to be the people that God has called us to be. This journey implies that we wake up everyday prepared to travel, prepared to move, prepared to live every part of our life in the right way.
It has been quite the turning point in my life when I realized that I'm on a journey, in every part of my life. When I arrive, a new journey is set before, just as the world around us is constantly in a state of change, our lives are not the same today as they were 5 years ago, nor will anything be the same 5 years from now. If we want to be God's holy people, the journey starts today, and continues tomorrow. As we follow this path, change is inevitable and each day, each step gets us closer to our goal, or further away from it based upon how we choose to live.
I over heard Bill Long, the CEO of Winco, talking to one of his managers. He made this simple analysis of his company, "If we aren't growing, we are dying." That thought has stuck with me throughout time. The truth in that simple phrase is eye opening and devastating. Ultimately if we are just seeking to maintain something, it will eventually die. Sadly, that is the way many of us treat our relationship with God. If I just do the basic duties, tenants of my faith, I will be okay. Yet, time and time again I have seen so many people become comfortable in their faith, lose interest and fall.
How do we avoid this fate? Well, I think it is simple. Each day we just need to recognize it. The first steps to the recovery of any addict is recognizing the issue. Each day, when we wake up, we must recognize that we are continuing on a journey to be the people God wants us to be. A few thousand years ago (or so), God called Noah to build an Ark. He gave him the dimensions, supplied the wood and gave him a year to complete the project. I have to think, the idea of an Ark was quite the nonsense. Really an Ark makes no sense, no rain has ever been seen, and in the lives of these people, thousands of years, their has never been a flood that would necessitate such a huge boat, if they had ever seen a flood or a boat for that matter.
Noah had to get up every morning and make a decision to work on this Ark. He pulled himself out of bed, strapped on his boots, and made a decision to continue his work. In the same way, we are choosing to live our lives completely different from the way this world does. We wake every morning and have to choose our Holiness. The decisions we make are counter culture to the world around us. We are as different as Noah was to the world around him. Are you prepared to wake every morning and choose Holiness?
