Make Good Choices

“Make good choices.”

            My children have heard this from their mother for years. Every time that they are getting ready to leave the house, Heather will say to them, “I love you. Make good choices.”

            I hope that they realize how important that is. I hope that we all realize how important that is.

            We have a choice to make “good choices”, to me, implies that we also have the choice to make “bad” choices. But not all the choices and decisions that we make seem either really good or really bad at the time. They are just little, seemingly inconsequential choices. But they’re not.

I think we have more little choices every day to make than we have big choices every day to make, but the little choices lead us in the direction and put us in the position to make the big ones.

I heard a pastor once call these pivotal choices. He was talking about basketball, and that in life the big choice is like making a shot. That’s where we see the fruits of our labor, that’s where the payoff is for the hard work, and that most often in life we want to see where God is leading us to shoot. But before we can take a shot, our position is important, and most of the time you can’t just take a shot because there is something that is trying to block your shot. Then you have to pivot. The pivot allows a better perspective on your problem so that you can have a better view of the goal, so that your eyes can be on the prize.

So, it’s the little pivotal choices that really matter most.

The Lord gives us little choices to make every day.

The devil gives us little choices to make every day.

Make good choices. But then you’re looking at something online that you know you shouldn’t look at it. But it’s just a little choice. It’s just a little porn.

It’s a choice.

It’s just a little vaping. It’s just one drag.

It’s a choice.

It’s just one pill.

It’s just one drink.

It’s a choice, and all our little choices pivot the direction of our lives, and lead to habits.

It’s not just sex and drugs. Some people gossip and do more damage with their mouths than any alcoholic would do with a bottle.

Sometimes the anger is the habit, or the bitterness or the stress or the worry or the complaining. You didn’t wake up one day wanting to have these attitudes, but the little choices you made every day have led to the place where you are today.

I want to remind you today that regardless of choices you have made, it’s never too late to start making good choices, it’s never too late to make the best choice.

If it looked like it was too late for anyone, it would be at the end of your life. But it’s never too late, as long as there in breath (life) in you.

            Luke 23:39-42 tells the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. And there were two other men that day hanging on crosses beside Jesus. One of them, with his very last breath, continued in the path of choices that he had made by hurling insults at Jesus and those standing below him. The other man, however, changed. He was at the end of his rope, the end of his life, literally. He couldn’t make restoration to the people he had wronged. He couldn’t turn over a new leaf. All he could offer was himself. A broken and hurting and dying individual who had likely made a lifetime of bad choices. And so he said, “Jesus, remember me” (Luke 23:42).

            And that was enough. That was one good choice, that was the one BEST choice, and in that moment a lifetime of bad choices was forgiven. That’s grace.

            Regardless of where you find yourself today, as long as there is breath (life) in you, it’s never too late to make good choices.

And it’s never too late to make the best choice of all (Romans 10:9-10).

Worship in the Wilderness

There are some sounds that are just wonderful to wake up to. The sound of the ocean is one of my favorite sounds to wake up to, one week every year I get to wake up to that sound, and there have been some years where we’ve debated on going to the beach, we didn’t have enough money, Dave Ramsey would have said don’t go, but I think that there are some places that fills your soul and does good for you, and the ocean is one of those places for me. Or how about waking up to the sound of hearing, “Wake up baby, I cooked you breakfast”- that’s a good one to wake up to!

But most often, we wake up to the sound of a ringing alarm clock. And then it’s off to the races! Work, school, eat, try to get some things done at home, sleep, then do it all over again.

How can we ever find silence and solitude in our lives? We can’t find it. We have to make it.

I believe we have to be intentional about this because it’s not natural to us. We tend to fill all the empty spaces with something and the silent places with noise.

When we get home we turn on the TV, when we get in the car we turn on the radio, when someone is hurting we feel the need to offer words to fill up the quiet space because silence has become for us, uncomfortable.

And from the life of Jesus we have several times where we are told that Jesus got away by himself to pray. Here’s one of them:

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places (other translations read “deserted places” or “the wilderness”) and prayed.” (Luke 5:16)

We think of silence as just being the absence of noise.

Silence isn’t always quiet. It is in the silence of worship where we can pray without words, especially when we don’t know what words to say, let alone what words to pray. And it is there in this silence of worship where our spirits cry out to our God, sometimes in silence, sometimes in groans that words can not express, and our God who we are in communion with hears our prayers.

We can withdraw to pray in a lonely place without being alone.

We can withdraw to pray in a deserted place without being abandoned.

And we can withdraw to the wilderness to pray.

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1-2a)

This passage is important to us in this 40 day season of Lent. These 40 days where we are fasting ourselves, where are seeking God’s voice in our own lives.

Jesus began in the wilderness, and in a spiritual way so do we.

The wilderness is a place we want to leave and get out of. But the wilderness can be a place of learning about God, the wilderness can be a place of leaning on God, the wilderness can be a place of realizing the love of God.

A wilderness of learning, leaning, loving, and then leaving.

And maybe it’s in the silence and solitude that we experience God in the silence of worship. And if God is in the silence of worship, if God is in the still small voice, if God is in the sound of sheer silence, then maybe there can be worship in the wilderness.

Maybe the wilderness times of our lives are not meant to be hurried through, as much as we want to get out of them, maybe in the wilderness we can still worship.

Just as Jesus did, by withdrawing to be alone with God.

And I pray that this week you create times to experience the presence of God in silence and solitude.

The Greatness of God

I love the story of the ‘transfiguration’ of Jesus. There is so much happening in it, and we read it every year in the church where I serve as pastor right before we start the season of Lent, which is the 40 days (not counting Sunday’s, so it’s really 46 total days) that lead up to Easter Sunday beginning on Ash Wednesday.

            If you’re not familiar with the story let me recommend that you grab your Bible and read it. Or, even if you are familiar with it, which might be worse because that usually means that we think we completely understand it, let me recommend that you grab your Bible and read it. Or if you would rather type in “Luke 9:28-36” in your browser you can read it that way as well.

            Here’s the just of it: Jesus goes up a mountain with three of his disciples (Peter, James, and John), to pray. And while they are on the mountain Jesus physically changes (“transfigures”), he kind of starts glowing and his clothes are dazzlingly white. As if that’s not enough, two other guys show up and start talking to Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Now Moses lived about 1500 years before this point in time, and Elijah lived about 900 or so years before this moment, and yet here they are, talking to Jesus.

            My favorite part of this whole story is the end of verse 33. In my NIV Bible it’s even in parentheses like this:

            “(He did not know what he was saying.)”

            Yeah. I get that.

            The reference (if you just read the story) was to Peter. Given the amazingness of this whole image, and the immense layers of theological insight that we could discern from this event and what it means to us as Christians and to the Church of Jesus Christ in this century, maybe it seems odd that my favorite verse is that Peter didn’t know what to say.

            So, let me explain the reason.

            Some people think I talk for a living. And using words is a big part of my job for sure, both spoken and written. I write out sermons but I preach them every week by speaking them. I lead Bible studies and devotions and small groups, and in all of them I speak (a lot probably) of words. I write this bi-weekly column and blog, and in so doing I use (again, a lot probably) of words, even though these are written words. When I visit people in their homes or run into them at Food City I talk to them with (again, a lot probably) words.

            I use words to try to convey spiritual truths and doctrinal ideologies in ways that I can understand, and hopefully that make sense to people I am talking to. But on this mountain top, Peter (who used a lot of words as well), is at a loss for words. The glory of God is being revealed Jesus right before his very eyes. The perfect and loving image of God in all his splendor, not to mention two giants of the faith with him; Moses representing the law and Elijah representing the prophets, and there is Jesus, as the cumulative fulfillment of it all.

            And Peter doesn’t know what to say. And to be honest, neither do I. And that’s a good thing. Because as they come down the mountain back into the needs and messiness of real life, we find this little verse tucked away at the end of the story:

            “And they were all amazed at the greatness of God” (Luke 9:43).

            So I think that’s the real point of it all. To be amazed at the greatness of God. Today, would you look for ways that God is amazing you? Maybe it’s in the sunrise this morning, or the mountain view you have from your back porch. Or maybe it’s in your child or grandchild, or in the loving expression on the face of your spouse. Maybe it’s in the immensity of all of God’s creation, or in the intrinsic qualities of a single cell. Maybe it is in the image of a long life well lived or a new life just beginning. Or look in the pages of Scripture, and inside yourself as a beloved and valuable child of the Most High.

            God is amazing. God is good. God is great. Today be amazed at the greatness of God. And you don’t even have to use any words, because sometimes it’s OK to not know what to say.