We soon discover that our journey in this world has so many competing demands distracting us from our true destination that we usually miss both the journey and the destination all together. Consumed with my empire building, I lost sight of what was important in life and sadly “arriving” became more important than “becoming.” Because I was so focused on what was next, I was never able to enjoy living in the moment. How much of the journey do we miss because we are so focused only on the destination? Our choices, our idols, and the stuff we covet have significant impact on us. What we fail to see is that God is more concerned with who we are becoming than with our empire building. Oddly enough, so are our wives and kids.

Power to choose; why does God allow this?

Have you ever given much thought to why God gave us the ability to make choices? Are you like me with a record breaking number of wrong choices? Have you ever thought about the impact of your choices when you barely escaped with your life on the back side of one of life’s storms? I wonder if God wrestled with the idea of giving us the freedom to make choices when He created us. He may have, but He created us out of love…to love Him…and love is a choice! So the power to choose was given to us.

Journeying through life with this power to choose I would listen to every voice available to me except the voice of Truth. My misguided seeking opened the door for the enemy to come in and wreak havoc in my life. There were many things competing to become the god of my life, but unfortunately I won and I became that god. Newton’s third law of motion profoundly states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So when we ignore the truth of God’s word and choose to live life our own way, for ourselves, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The corruption of this world, our self-centeredness, and the enemy of our soul rob us of the truth, which slowly drags us to our place of bondage, far from the freedom we could have. There is that unmistakable pull of human nature that always wants to draw us back toward dysfunction.

God gave us a remarkable choice. When God created Adam and Eve He did not force them to obey Him…He took a huge risk. A huge risk, with huge consequences. He let others into His story, and He lets their choices shape it profoundly.

How have you been doing with your power to choose?