We're talking about how faith complicates things, particularly when we are faced with difficult decisions that we must make. Yet we also saw that God's not trying to trick us by offering one "right" choice and one "wrong" one; rather, He blesses us for making a faithful choice in either direction.
And if that's the case, then it's tempting for us to fall into this trap of believing that maybe faith isn't the most important factor in making a decision. Maybe...we can make a decision based on our own interests, and God will simply bless us for going for it.
Maybe we can choose based on what we think we deserve or what we most want to happen in our lives or what will make us most comfortable. Maybe we can choose based on which option offers us less pain or less trouble or less of a challenge.
Maybe we can just decide which option we like better and go with that. Because hey, if God is going to bless us either way, then we should just do whatever we want for whatever reason we want to and then bask in the glory of God that is going to pour out over us.
That...would not be a faithful decision.
A faithful decision never has selfish - or self-centered - motives. It doesn't consider itself, except insofar as it recognizes the gifting and calling of God on one's life. And let's remember that God never said we were not supposed to have hard things in our lives; He always said that we would. What God has said is that we have to learn to look toward Him in the hard things.
The truth is that when we make a decision for our own comfort and just trust that God is going to bless us no matter which way we go, we're doing the same thing we talked about at the beginning of the week - we're trying to live a faith that is hands-off. We're trying to not have to think about the hard things or consider the viewpoint of God. We just want to live our lives.
It's more devious, because instead of just giving our lives over to God, we are also trying to make them most comfortable for us. We are trying to have everything that we want and also trying to cover ourselves with the idea of God. It's the thief who crosses himself before he breaks into the jewelry store. Something is amiss here.
So even if we know that God is going to bless us no matter which way we go, we still have to be mindful in our decision-making. We still have to consider the things of God above all else. When we sit down to make our list of pros and cons or whatever other factors we are taking into consideration, we have to keep the things of God foremost on our lists. We have to consider what He might want, what He might want to do, where He might be leading or calling us, what miracles He might have up His sleeve, what our lives might look like if He doesn't have those miracles for us, which way we should go that will draw us closer to Him.
That's really it. That's really the primary consideration. When we're looking at two paths, or even more, our question has to be, how does this path wind its way toward God? He will meet us there, but when we consider which way it is that we will go, our job is to prepare ourselves to meet Him there, too. Our job is to be working our way toward God. Not comfort. Not ease. Not entitlement. Not reputation. Not prestige. Not honor. Not any of the thousands of other things our flesh so easily convinces us to move toward. But only toward Him.
We still must be faithful in our choosing, even when there is blessing on both roads. For in the end, we are never moving toward an end, but toward a voice. Toward a calling. Toward a love. Toward grace.
Toward God.
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