Choice
Everything in the Christian walk revolves around choice.
I would be journaling my prayers to God, asking for peace and joy and strength and asking for so much, and that was all I knew how to do, because that was all I had ever heard to do. What I didn't know was that it was already within my reach. because we live with the Holy Spirit, we live with all of that waiting for us. I remember one morning I was having a hard time relating in love to a family member, and I journaled a prayer, and ended it with: Holy Spirit, I want to love my sister unconditionally. And I felt Him whisper: "So do it." And every time after that when I would pray an "I want" prayer, I felt a non-judgmental eye roll of "don't you get it? it's your choice. it's up to you."
I've had fruitful encounters from those "I want" prayers, where I am all of a sudden overwhelmed by abundance of what I asked for, but I really don't think that's the norm. It's beautiful to identify and communicate what you want to grow in, but I think too many times we pray an "I want" prayer, and then don't go any further. We let go of responsibility for our actions. God is not a puppet master, the Holy Spirit is not a puppet master. He is already holding it in outstretched hands. It's not far away or elusive. All it takes is a heart shift, a "I will choose love mindfully and on purpose, not waiting for it to just happen."
Choice is so relational, it was the whole reason for the Tree of Good and Evil. Love requires choice, it requires free will. If something is to truly be done out of love, it has to be a choice. Jesus chose us over and over before He went to the cross. There were so many opportunities from the moment the soldiers came to when He was nailed to the wood that He could have chosen anything else, and no one would have been the wiser.
And even though we are saved by the covering blood of Christ and not by anything we could have done, it still becomes a daily choice to walk in the salvation we have been given. It is still a choice.
I am all for getting in touch with your heart, and unearthing what filters or woundings or heart attitudes that you are viewing life through, but there is an element of our salvation and our free will that gives us the capacity to choose love, to choose kindness, to choose the right thing no matter what our filters are. There is no excuse for being unloving (there's no excuse but there is grace), it is completely our choice.
If we're told that we have to practice thinking on whatsoever is true, honest, just, pure, and lovely, then that means that our heart attitudes towards people are not a result of deeply understanding ourselves and our past. It is a choice that becomes reinforced through practice to then replace the wrong heart attitudes.
I would be journaling my prayers to God, asking for peace and joy and strength and asking for so much, and that was all I knew how to do, because that was all I had ever heard to do. What I didn't know was that it was already within my reach. because we live with the Holy Spirit, we live with all of that waiting for us. I remember one morning I was having a hard time relating in love to a family member, and I journaled a prayer, and ended it with: Holy Spirit, I want to love my sister unconditionally. And I felt Him whisper: "So do it." And every time after that when I would pray an "I want" prayer, I felt a non-judgmental eye roll of "don't you get it? it's your choice. it's up to you."
I've had fruitful encounters from those "I want" prayers, where I am all of a sudden overwhelmed by abundance of what I asked for, but I really don't think that's the norm. It's beautiful to identify and communicate what you want to grow in, but I think too many times we pray an "I want" prayer, and then don't go any further. We let go of responsibility for our actions. God is not a puppet master, the Holy Spirit is not a puppet master. He is already holding it in outstretched hands. It's not far away or elusive. All it takes is a heart shift, a "I will choose love mindfully and on purpose, not waiting for it to just happen."
Choice is so relational, it was the whole reason for the Tree of Good and Evil. Love requires choice, it requires free will. If something is to truly be done out of love, it has to be a choice. Jesus chose us over and over before He went to the cross. There were so many opportunities from the moment the soldiers came to when He was nailed to the wood that He could have chosen anything else, and no one would have been the wiser.
And even though we are saved by the covering blood of Christ and not by anything we could have done, it still becomes a daily choice to walk in the salvation we have been given. It is still a choice.
I am all for getting in touch with your heart, and unearthing what filters or woundings or heart attitudes that you are viewing life through, but there is an element of our salvation and our free will that gives us the capacity to choose love, to choose kindness, to choose the right thing no matter what our filters are. There is no excuse for being unloving (there's no excuse but there is grace), it is completely our choice.
If we're told that we have to practice thinking on whatsoever is true, honest, just, pure, and lovely, then that means that our heart attitudes towards people are not a result of deeply understanding ourselves and our past. It is a choice that becomes reinforced through practice to then replace the wrong heart attitudes.
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