Choose life

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deuteronomy 32:19

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. II Corinthians 10:5

There can be times in our lives, when we seem to keep stumbling over the same issue. This may be a past hurt, disappointment, deep regret, an issue of forgiveness or something similar that seems to haunt us. Recently I kept stumbling over some similar circumstances and instead of jumping over them, they caused me to stumble every time.  A good friend of mine gave me this advice:

Choose life.

What she meant was that whenever one of these things came up, instead of dwelling on the past hurt, disappointment, regret or unforgiveness all of which can lead us in a fruitless circle that brings no release - choose life. Choose to take that thought captive which keeps making you stumble and refuse to dwell on it. Instead fill your mind with thoughts of life. These may be thoughts of thankfulness, forgiveness, salvation, healing, God’s goodness, faithfulness, grace, mercy and so on. We should declare God’s truth instead of thinking about those things that have gone wrong.

Soon after my friend said this to me, a thought about something painful came to my mind. I was just about to share it when I realised where this would lead. Instead I took the thought captive and replaced it with thoughts of life and thankfulness.

Choosing life is not the same as sweeping things under the carpet and pretending something has never happened. It means recognising something was hard, difficult, disappointing and that maybe someone, including yourself, may need forgiving. However having done that, instead of focusing on these things, you choose instead to look at the positive Godly aspects of life.

Martin Luther said, ‘You may let a bird fly over your head but you do not have to let it land in your hair and make a nest.’ By which he meant that thoughts may come flying past but we do not have to let them land and make a home in our minds.

Today if you keep stumbling over an issue, can I encourage you to stop letting it dominate your life and instead take the thoughts captive and ‘choose life’ which will bring freedom and joy to you. 

Love your neighbour as yourself

Love your neighbour as yourself Leviticus 19: 18

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19: 26

Joyce Meyer says she found it impossible to love other people when she didn’t love or like herself.  I can agree with that!  I was at my most prickly, awkward and downright difficult when I didn’t love, let alone like myself.  I constantly compared myself to others and came up short every time. In order to try and make myself feel better, I would criticise others. I covered it all over with a veneer of jollity but there was a harsh, unkind edge to it. There was not a lot I could do about it because I needed a God who loves me more than I will never understand to come and set me free from all that criticism and unkindness.

This is the greatest miracle of all; that God, who created the universe with his word, would come down to earth to love and die for me.  He took a hurt, bitter, rejected and under it all dissatisfied person, cross with herself and everyone else, and with love draw her to himself. He took all my sin, shame and guilt and nailed it to the cross and then loved me till all that angry bitterness was soaked away in his love.

I am not perfect but I am forgiven and when I do sin, God in love points it out, not to make me feel bad but to set me free. It truly is incredible – beyond belief but that is the amazing God who loves us. He made each of us to be unique, completely different to everyone else so comparisons are useless. There is no way we can compare ourselves other than we are all humans and some are saved and some are not. God’s command to us is to love them; the saved and the unsaved, the lovely and the unlovely, the disagreeable and agreeable, the friend or enemy.

I used never to be able to say anything nice about anyone including myself but other Christians by being kind to me showed me the way of kindness; others being gracious to me to showed me grace. I marvel now at the longsuffering patience of people and when I get irritated with other people’s lack of grace or kindness, I remember how I used to be.

Underneath every angry, prickly, difficult person is a hurt, rejected human being who needs the love of God shown to them by those who have already received his love, mercy and grace.  I am so thankful to those people who put up with me long enough to show me the Father’s love and tell me about his forgiveness freely given to everyone who asks. That was the start of the Great Adventure.  It is a process that will continue to the day I die but as I receive more and more of the Father’s love, I am able to love myself and therefore to love other people.

 

Trusting God with our hearts

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding Proverbs 3: 5

When we become Christians we talk about giving our lives or our heart to the Lord but these two expressions are not the same. Giving our lives to Jesus talks about living for him instead of ourselves; we prioritise him in our lives so he becomes the most important person in our daily existence. Giving our hearts to Jesus is about how we feel and think about him and others. It is about letting Jesus touch and heal our emotions so we reflect his love and kindness to others.  

When I gave my heart to God, it was strongly encased in a hard shellto protect it because I had decided that due to past wounds, no one would hurt me or get too close to me again. By nature I am soft hearted but I felt people didn’t care about me that much; they had hurt me and so I let this hard shell surround my heart. I had to ask Jesus to take away the hardness.  In addition my heart had some very sore scabs from the wounds I had suffered from misunderstandings and thoughtlessness on the part of others. I had to ask Jesus to heal my heart and with his love and grace he has soaked away the hard shell and the sore scabs so my heart is much softer now towards both him and others.

I also had to learn to trust him to look after my heart and protect it from the inevitable hurts, pains and disappointments of this life. This was a really hard thing to do because by entrusting my heart to Jesus it felt like it was sitting exposed on the palm of his hand. It made me feel very vulnerable. However Jesus has proved faithful and he has protected me so when the knocks and hurts of life come, I have not had to withdraw in anger or silence from others. I have been able to stay open to them knowing God has my heart firmly and safely in his hands.

It can be a very daunting thing to give our hearts to Jesus but he wants us to walk in freedom not hidden away behind our own shells of protection, nursing our wounds but to walk openly being able to show love and grace even in the face of unkindness knowing that God will protect and look after us.