2-27-2023

Good Morning All,

     Isaiah 41: 9b-10; “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you” 

    Pick and choose.  We use that phrase often.  It is a phrase that we use in a frivolous manner.  We go to the fast-food place and we pick what we want to eat and then choose how to order it “my way”.  It seems that we pick and choose on every whim.  This makes our picking and our choosing very shallow and without much thought or plan.

    When you are choosing pizza toppings, being shallow isn’t that big of a deal.  If you are picking which movie to go to, you can choose on a whim.  Yet we seem to carry this attitude over into our more personal and more important areas of our lives.  We seem to have made making choices something which has no bearing or consequences in or to our lives.

     We choose to be married and then unmarried.  We choose to love someone today but tomorrow we choose to not love someone.  Some days we choose to talk but others we choose to fight.  I think the one thing that amazes me the most is that we choose to not show respect for other people.  We choose to not show simple human decency.  Why can’t we talk without calling each other idiots, morons, thugs, Nazis, communists, and other names I won’t write?  When did we choose to hate? 

    For the most part, we have always elected to hate.  This fact is why so often, when we get to the end of the day, we look in the mirror and ask (or tweet or post) the question; why did I get up this morning?  Why do I go about this day only to be beaten down by the world whether the world took the form of a boss or a coworker, a spouse or a child, a teacher, or a student?  Everyone chose to dump on me and then bale on me.  The devil loves for you to think this.

    God chose you to be his child.  At the end of the day (and the start and the middle) you are God’s redeemed child and he will never forsake you.  When all the world chooses to walk all over you, God chooses to love you.  When we experience the painful events of our lives, it is when we feel that we can handle it by ourselves that we suffer the most pain.  The weight of the world is on our back and Jesus tells us to come to him and let him carry the load.  We don’t need to fear the worst for God promises his best; eternal life with him.

    As difficult as it is, this world and life is not all there is for us.  This time, our earthly life, is but a minor spot in a life that we will live.  We need to trust God and accept his ways as true.  God has chosen you; he has chosen to give you life hold on to that promise for that is our hope.

Dear Father in heaven, we give you thanks for the gift of life.  Father, you chose us and give us faith to choose you.  Show us the path by which we will choose to love one another and to hold onto one another and value one another with the love which you have for us.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen          

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret