Decisions… choices… first things first… putting things in order…
Anytime we find ourselves standing at a major crossroad of life, we can count on the fact that our priorities will have to be evaluated and that change is likely to rise up before us like the plateaus of the southwest… slowly at first… but with resolve.
If any of our priorities represent ways and/or things or even people that we are holding too closely, we may find ourselves feeling conflicted… possibly angry… maybe a little pitiful that such a thing would be asked of us…
What is sure, however, is that if we choose not to go forward, at best we may travel sideways for awhile… but eventually, we will find ourselves stuck where we are or heading backward… a place few of us would really choose to go. It’s just that when much is asked of us, we are a little slow in letting go.
I’m facing decisions like this right now. My seminary classes have begun and I’m thrilled and very grateful for the opportunity. The first course is a wonderful affirmation that I’ve made the right decision to start on this path… but to go forward at a pace that makes graduation a viable option in less than 15 years… I am going to have to make some hard choices about how my time is used each hour, day, week, and so forth.
“No pain, no gain” is what many say about beginning exercise programs… “It is what it is” is a fairly recent addition to our cliché repository.
Putting things in order can mean giving up one thing to have the other… in Christian terms we call that surrender. Will we believe that the course before us is God’s choice for our lives and yield to his sense of direction, even when we have to leave some things behind?
I’ve used this illustration before, but it’s like the settlers moving west and reaching their first difficult river crossing or desert or mountain range… all of a sudden, there’s more to consider than grandma’s china in the barrels tied to the back of the covered wagon. The living things… the mule teams… have to be considered. If they can’t make the trip neither can we. Grandma’s china may’ve come over by ship from England and it may’ve been made by the finest china makers there… but it will have to go to the side of the trail if we’re going to make it across whatever the challenge before us is.
The principle is the same for us now, too, in the things of God. When a calling has come to us, there are things that we must do… and that we must be willing to pickup and/or lay down. The longer we delay in making our decisions and choices… the longer it will be before we are moving forward into God’s will and purpose for our lives. Some opportunities can be missed or severely delayed because we just won’t let go of grandma’s china.
What does grandma’s china look like in your life? That’s the question I’m facing right now. Will I set it aside? Will the people I love understand that I must set it aside? Will they support my decision? Will they help me get it off the wagon if they lose something because of it, too?
These are hard questions that come to all of us at different times in our lives.
What I am already hearing and seeing from my first course is what I would expect to hear and see… an affirmation that there is only one way. However we describe that… whatever it looks like to us… the way of Christ is the only way. If we choose him and resolve to follow him… then we have to follow his directions even if the short term looks like we are losing something precious.
It’s the long term we have to consider… and we have to climb up a little higher to be able to see farther ahead.
Whatever God is asking of you, I hope you’ll consider the cost carefully and then do it anyway… without him, there is no light… no life… and I can’t imagine anything worth holding onto that’s more important than our relationships with him.
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