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. Deuteronomy 30:19
Perhaps one of the biggest debates surrounding the human experience is whether we really have any choices at all. Where you were born, the color of your skin, your nationality, your genetics, sex, family group were all determined before you were born and are very important influences in your life story that you simply not escape nor change. To some extent they set boundaries in your life, but they do not determine the ultimate course of your life.
Every person that has ever lived has had to deal with boundary issues, some were born male and others female, some are black and some white, some are strong and athletic while others become intellectuals and artisans. So many combinations and so many opportunities. To truly be human, I believe is deal with the hand you've been dealt and play the cards given especially into your hands. I also believe that every hand that has ever been dealt is potentially a winning hand if we only would play carefully the hand we've been dealt and stop looking at everyone else's cards!
In Deuteronomy, Moses invites us to be human and to choose how we will live our lives. The decision, he tell us, will impact not just us, but future generations. It's that important!
So let me ask you... How have you chosen the path of your life? What cards have you been dealt that have yet to be played?
I have chosen the path of my life by not choosing to control or direct it myself but by choosing to surrender it to God, “for He knows the plans that He has for me.” For me, surrendering is a choice; a conscious choice on my part of giving back to God that which is His to begin with so that He can use it to accomplish His will through me as well as His purpose for my life. My life is not my life; there is nothing about my life that is my own — I breathe because He allows me to breathe, I walk because He allows me to walk, I think because He allows me to think. I am because He allows me to be. My life is not about me; it is all about and because of Him.
I don’t know where He wants me to go or what He wants me to do for Him, but I wait with eager anticipation with eyes and ears that can see and hear along with a willing heart that says to Him constantly, “Here I am, a sinner and a broken vessel, send me.” And so often He does, thus growing me in a closer relationship with Him and for other of His tasks that lie ahead. Whatever cards I am dealt, as long as they come from God, I know they come for a reason, either for me or for someone else; and so I will accept the hand saying, “Thy will be done.” And I will play them as best I can, knowing “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” and because in complete subserviance to and dependence upon God, I choose surrender.