I sometimes
have trouble coming to terms with the fact that I have to choose to follow
Christ every day. Over and over, every
day. Why can’t I just choose once and
then it is decided?
Let’s say I
go to get a coffee at a restaurant somewhere and the waiter asks me if I want
sugar in it. I answer yes. 30 seconds later he asks me if I want sugar
in it….um, yes please. 25 seconds later he
asks me again, do you want sugar in it?
Is this a trick question? I said
yes already. 10 seconds later…do you
want sugar in your coffee? Listen dude,
do you have a hearing problem? How many
times do I have to say yes before you get the picture?!?
So why do I
have to choose Christ over and over, day after day? I get that we’re beings with free will. And I get why that is important, I would have
chosen to go that route as well if I were God.
(Haha, I’m sure God just breathed a sigh of relief – oh thank goodness,
Jon agrees with what I have done, I guess I must be doing things right then….LOL) But if I choose God today, why do I have to
go through the sometimes agonizing decision again tomorrow, and then again the
next day? It is not always easy to make
that choice – temptations come in so many different forms that the choice doesn’t
even look the same from one time to the next.
In fact, often I don’t even recognize that is the choice I am making.
Some of you
will say, you really only have to choose to follow Christ one time
and then after that your name is written in the Book of Life and you’re good to
go. Ok, I am not going to go into the
eternal security vs. conditional security debate here (but I will mention that
if you ever have that debate with me I lean on the conditional security side of
that fence). Maybe I should say I have
to choose to live for Christ daily.
Actually multiple times per day would be more accurate.
I get tired
of failing. I get tired of being tempted
– often with the same things over and over.
I just want to choose once and be done with it.
I suppose
the answer lies somewhere with the fact that time is linear and choices we make
do not rule out the possibility that we will encounter similar branches in the
path ahead of us… Whatever. That is not a very satisfying answer when I
am frustrated about this.
On a good
note, I was reading the other day and something clicked for me. We will not be presented with these decisions
in heaven. The temptation to do wrong
will be eliminated therefore the choice to follow Christ won’t need to be
made. It will already have been
made. So, in the face of eternity,
choosing to follow Christ daily for 70 years isn’t all that long really. After 50 bazillion years in heaven I will
probably look back at those first 70 years and say it was really only one
choice after all…
I appreciate and identify with your struggle. I'm not sure that the coffee analogy works in understanding, as some days my preference changes spending on my mood or circumstances. It implies two equally weighted choices.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to choosing Christ daily, I don't think that the choices are equally weighted every moment. In the same way that you committed once to be married to that lovely wife of yours and yet daily you choose to remain faithful in that commitment. In that light, I am grateful for the opportunity to daily "choose" faithfulness to Christ and for the ongoing opportunities to choose again and again, knowing that I will have moments of weakness where I make the unfaithful choice but am still given hope and grace to choose again. Just some encouragement to feel the freedom of daily choosing instead of feeling it as pressure.