there have been a few things i have been talking with God about for a while. i have spent many a conversation asking for Him to give me breakthrough, understanding, enlightenment. whatever you want to call it, you know what i am talking about. perhaps it is the addiction you wish you could quit or the same pattern in relationships you wish you could change. perhaps it is something “small” but none the less, i bet there is something.
i find it to be true that it is easy to beat up yourself when the breakthrough is slow coming. when you seem to fight and work and nothing moves. nothing appears to shift. it’s so incredibly frustrating. is He listening? does He not want me to have the breakthrough? what am i missing?!
for the last couple of years the Lord has been talking to me a lot about identity and beauty and radiating out of relationship with Him, not external things. whether position or wealthy or looks or any other standard we measure others. for me, image has always been the thing. no matter the fight in me to find freedom it is slow to come. i’ll get a piece here and another there, but breakthrough seems far off.
some time ago i was talking with a dear friend. i believe we were talking about something trivial if my memory serves me correctly then he changes gears…”predestination or free will” he asks. ha so we are going for light conversations i take it. honestly i was a bit nervous. smart dude. he has been to seminary. and this is a big question that the enemy utilizes to cause ridiculous division. so i give it my best go and answer.
both. i say. He has predestined me AND my choices matter.
i share that because of this… i have held that belief for a long time. i know that i am His. i know that what i do matters. but all of a sudden there was breakthrough.
MY CHOICES MATTER.
your choices matter. not simply in big things. yes in big things but they also matter in small things. they matter in what you eat and drink. they matter in how you drive and treat people. they matter how you work. they matter how you handle temptation.
i think it is often easy to live in a victim mindset or even a mindset that says “well there is grace” which isn’t grace at all. it is easy to excuse away our choices because we know we are His. but i don’t think those go together at all. BECAUSE WE ARE HIS, OUR CHOICES MATTER.
yes God brings freedom and breakthrough but my choice matters how i handle the lie satan hurdles my direction.
yes God brings freedom and breakthrough but my choice matters what i eat.
yes God brings freedom and breakthrough but my choice matters. period.
what’s even crazier to me comes out of some meditation on Luke 24 i was doing. i was meditating on Jesus coming to His disciples after He has raised from the dead. He meets with the guys on the road to Emmaus, opens their eyes, they freak out and run back to Jerusalem to tell the “eleven”. then lo and behold, Jesus shows up there and they all think they have seen a ghost. so He lets them touch Him and eats some broiled fish (i would have gone for falafel but hey). but then the next two verses…
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…
they spent three years with God incarnate and still didn’t get it. if that doesn’t relieve some pressure, i don’t know what else will. they knew the scriptures in and out. they had this amazing rabbi, Jesus, teaching them. AND THEY STILL DIDN’T GET IT!
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…
we don’t get understanding and breakthrough because of something we do but because He is who He is! He is the one who opens our hearts and minds. but the kicker…my choices still matter in the process. how that all works out, i couldn’t tell you. if you figure it out, let me know. i do know that i move and breath and have my being because He wills me to do so. He continuously creates. He continuously puts breath in my lungs. ever still He invites me to make better choices. never to earn but because i am who i am, His.
what choices is He inviting you to change? where do you get to partner with what He is doing in you and choose differently?
