Choices

Have you ever heard the hymn with the chorus that says, “If God be for us, if God be for us, if God be for us; who can be against us? Who? Who? Who? Who can be against us, against us?” I don’t think I learned it until I was an adult, but if you knew it as a child it would be a song you would never forget. The tune is catchy and the words are easy. Well, I have had that hymn playing in my head over the past couple of days.

Sometimes a thought is in our head and we don’t even realize it. I’ve had one of those for I don’t know how long, but on Sunday as I heard the sermon it suddenly showed itself in all its color. I don’t remember what brought on the light bulb exactly, but it had something to do with the truth that God is for His children and wants the best for them. I realized that while I nodded to such a truth I had not been living as if I believed it. The past several months of my life have not been easy. Lots of new things, lots of doors slamming shut, lots of wonder at what my future holds. In the back of my mind, I had come to the belief that God was somehow against me. He wouldn’t let me do anything my heart yearned to do. Or so I thought. For I ought to know how deceitful my heart is. And I do truly believe that in all the disappointments life throws at us, God – as a loving Heavenly Father – is doing what is best for His children. He is doing what is best for me. But like any child who wants to play with fire, I didn’t accept that truth.

I’ll make it plain right now that I hate making choices. I analyze things too much. I work myself up into a sweat. Pros and cons don’t pile themselves up in neat little rows to be compared. I think I make a decision, then something new pops up, and I go back to the starting line. If I ever die of a massive heart attack, you can probably bet I had a choice looming over my head.

We all have to make choices in life which we don’t want to make. Have you ever found yourself in a circumstance where you think you know exactly what you want to do? You knock on all the doors, you spend hours on projects related to it, and each door slams shut in your face. Okay. So, Plan B. This plan isn’t as sure as the other seemed and leaves room for conjecture. Well and good because as Plan A didn’t work out, you bring the lessons learned to Plan B. Then out of the blue someone hands you Plan C. Now, its workable with Plan B in some forms, but it has nothing whatever to do with Plan A, which you rather liked. Do you take Plan C and run with it? Or do you wait to see if Plan A might still pan out sometime along the way? Plan C isn’t the most appealing plan in the world. In fact, there are certain points in it you can’t stand. It doesn’t take you at all in the direction in your heart yearns to go. But it is something new, different, and everything has lessons to be learned.

Besides, it came out of no where. And doesn’t that remind you of the verse in Isaiah which tells us that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than ours? So, it hardly makes a bit of sense and takes you some place you don’t want to go but maybe that’s the point. Maybe its time to take up that other hymn and shout at the top of your lungs, “Trust and obey!”

And so I take up that banner, peaceful only in the knowledge that my God will not leave me. (And, I confess, praying He will not leave me in my new place very long.) For next month, I am moving to Texas.