Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Moses’ instructions seem clear: when presented with a choice between (a) life and prosperity or (b) death and adversity, choose Option A.
Really? you ask with mocked surprise. Your sarcasm is not unwarranted because despite knowing that life is generally preferably to death, choosing Option A is not always simple or easy. And we never get to view the resolutely clear outcomes of our decisions in advance.
We cannot always know what is behind the doors we open, the calls we make, and the various opportunities that come our way. Most of the momentous doors, calls, and opportunities look much like the ordinary ones we encounter. Life, we learn, is full of countless choices, set before us daily, as scripture says. Most leave us only slightly better or worse off. Some significantly change our course. A scant few result in a memorable life lesson that leads to enormous prosperity or great calamity, even death.
While Jimmy Buffet sang “my whole world lies waiting behind Door Number Three,” the whole world will actually be found in our humble practice of daily faithfulness. This amounts to making a daily choice to love the Lord, to walk in God’s word and observe God’s commandments. Some days will go well; others will be long and hard. Therein we find Option A: life and its blessings. That is the promise of faith, not that you’ll necessarily get lucky in your choice of doors, but that you’ll be found faithful. Daily.
Dag Hammarskjöld, former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, said, “Obedience requires an act of will which must continually be reiterated.” Choose wisely.
Consider
How many of my daily choices involve being conscientiously faithful? How attentive and receptive am I to opportunities that require me to sacrifice?
Pray
God, thank you for my life and the choices I have to live it. Give me wisdom in choosing among the opportunities I have before me today. Amen.