Many of you, like me, come to the New Year with an expectation and anticipation of something new and different, which is why we all come up with New Year’s resolutions. Why do we do that? It’s because we want change and we all realize that there is something about ourselves that we need to face and grow. We all have very good intentions of making these changes and some of us even start to implement them into the first few weeks of the year. However, most of us default right back to our old habits, sometimes even forgetting what our resolution was as if we never had one at all.
I believe that if most of us can implement a Challenge of Choice that by the end of 2017, we will have made significant changes in our life. As I reflect back on my own life, I realize that a lot of disappointment, anger, regret, and unhappiness came from making the wrong choices. We all know what the best is for us. God doesn’t hide that from us but we tend to avoid it in some aspects based on our own desires at the time. Yet, our choices keep us living in a certain pattern that never changes and we always find an excuse to keep choosing the ‘same way’. Well, I think I’ve lived long enough to know that some of my choices haven’t brought life back to my spirit. The result of bad choices doesn’t bring about a good feeling or a lasting abundance. What our own fleeting desires bring us is only temporary. Most of us find it hard to wait for what God has for us. We fight to do things our own way for risk of loosing out on something. For us “to wait” is “to suffer”. It is definitely a challenge. Yet, we have to look back on experience. Where have your bad choices left you? What makes it hard to make a better choice? What area of life, are those choices most in?
If you ever really want the destiny that God has given you, you have to make choices based on the light and love between you and God. Yes, God has the same governing for all of us but not the same destiny. All of our choices should be hidden in the relationship between God and the person. We are definitely creatures of habits who need to create new habits that inspire and prosper us in the Lord.
Knowing that we are people who go back on our word, what can keep us motivated? Continuing to look back on our experiences of all the bad choices we made and where they’ve gotten us or haven’t gotten us. Do you know making bad choices has an end result of feeling lost? It brings about depression and other roots that just aren’t good. People continue to wonder what their purpose is, where God is in their lives, or what God has for them yet they make choices all the time that go against it. What do you have to experience to have a 0 toleration for this type of fruit in your life? If you need motivation, let it be that if you don’t make a better choice, in the same circumstance the next time around, don’t expect too much more than what you’re already had or expect something worse.
On the contrary, this is not going to be you because you are fed up, you are tired, and you are hungry for a life change more than ever before. I welcome you to the Challenge of Choice for the year of 2017. This year, your spirit will scream at you when the choice you are about to make is not a good one for you. I pray that the Holy Spirit will convict your spirit to the highest levels of sensitivity that when making a bad choice, your spirit can not rest until you change it. I pray that the Holy Spirit will be your Counselor of Counselors this year. I pray that He will be your Friend in your Challenge of Choice. I pray that He will walk with you and talk with you everyday with the voice of God and the voices of Heaven that your destiny will come closer, giving you more vision of your own life. I pray that with each good choice, your spirit will soar higher, bringing you closer to God and the Joy of the Lord. I pray that the Lord will be your strength, in Jesus name.
Lord, forgive us for making choices that go against your very being. Forgive us for our selfishness, our impatience, and our arrogance in feeling that we know best. Forgive us for ignoring the voice of your Spirit when heard and provide us with an ear and heart to listen more actively.
It disheartens me to see people live a life less than what is provided to them. I plan to get there with all my strength. Don’t leave this earth without getting what God has for you here. You do have a choice. Choose life!
Deuteronomy 30:19
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.