Decision Points

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt.

-- Hebrews 11:24-26.

I recently have begun to listen to books on CD on my drive to work as is another friend of mine. I had lent her a copy of one of my books and not so long ago she returned it along with one that she had finished listening to. The books I tend to select fall under the category of Christian Living/Self Help. The borrowed book was of the secular romance genre. Every morning as I popped that CD in the player the intensity of the content grew and yesterday morning it became down right risqué. Part of me wanted to keep listening to see if the storyline was really going where my mind had already been and back. The other part of me, knew that it really didn’t matter – I needed to turn it off. You see, I had, not 15 minutes earlier, been in my quiet time with God. To continue to listen would have completely torn down what God and I had just built up. Knowing the difference between bad, good, better, and best for this specific situation I pushed the power button to off, said a prayer asking for my mind to be cleansed of any remaining ungodly thoughts, and then tuned my radio to a Christian music station.

I tell you all of this because I recently came across a quote from none other, The Greatest himself, Muhammad Ali. “I hated every minute of the training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” And just moments after I read this quote, it reminded me of a saying that Dave Ramsey, a well respected financial guy, repeats over and over in his Financial Peace University: “Live like no one else, so that later, you can LIVE like no one else.” And then not moments after statement got processed in my brain, today’s scripture came washing over me. It’s a verse my dad had challenged me to memorize over twenty years ago and it has popped into my consciousness whenever I have a seemingly benign, but not so much, decision to make. You see, it’s not so easy to have just one misguided choice, because like a snowball, one poor decision leads to another, and before you know it, you’re right where you never intended on being.

If you are going to choose to live for God, then every decision counts. It doesn’t matter if the choice is about the media you absorb, or the food you eat, the money you spend, the words you speak. This is a hard line, I know it all too well. My days, heck, my hours, are far from perfect. I wish I could say that I lived a flawless day, just once! But I am human after all. Thank goodness for God’s grace that restores me moment by moment.

Dear Friend, you are also a recipient of God’s redeeming grace. Slow yourself down, think about your options and choose that which will allow you to experience the reward God has in store for you.