We are faced with choices every day. They come in different sizes...some come with ease while others bring difficulty and heartbreak. From choices to hit the snooze one more time on a dark rainy morning, to what kind of coffee to drink, what to wear or eat today, what road to take during construction to more difficult choices like where to send your kids to school, where to move (or should you move), should you tell a friend her husband is cheating on her or even harder should we take a family member home to pass peacefully, free from hospital commotion? The list goes on and on. You get the point, choices come in all different shapes in sizes. Some of them are so completely common that we choose without even giving thought to them while others are painstakingly long processes in order to make the right choices. Some choices effect other choices. They are personal to you and your life and your preferences.
I have been leading a Bible study on the book of James for about 7 weeks now. This is probably one of my favorite books of the Bible. For someone like me, who likes things to be said direct and succinctly, it gives me more than ample directions. I love that. What I didn't expect to learn throughout the study is the backround as to why James was giving the directions, who his audience was and who he was "emulating" if you will. If you look at Matthew 5-7, the sermon on the mount you will see Jesus, James' big, half brother giving a list of instructions. If you are like me and love to run down a mental (or written) checklist of what you are doing, then you love both the book of James and even more Jesus' words in this portion of scripture. All it takes to live a holy life and get all "A's in your Christian walk is to follow these rules to a "T" right? Simple. I like clean clear cut direction.
What I didn't anticipate learning from this study but more importantly from the last few years of my messy valley of a life is that it takes so much more than reading my list of rules, checking them off and going about my day. It takes a...choice to live them out from a heart perspective and not a mind perspective. Living as though they are in your heart is different then running through a list of do's and don'ts in your mind. When faced with anything deep, intense or emotionally time consuming in life you have a choice that you can begin to look at the Word of God with a different perspective maybe with a little more heart than mind. I've had so many conversations where Christians condone what they feel is permissible in their walk with God without falling into sin. In other words, people often ask what can I get away with...what are the gray areas that maybe are not in black and white in the sermon on the mount, the book of James or the whole Bible for that matter?
As I've walked through some pretty intense emotions of loss, I realized something that I thought I already knew but now is my reality that I am so thankful for. You can run down a list of do's and don'ts, you can try to walk as close to the line as you can without falling into sin to be "culturally relevant", you can even pretty it up and make it look like you are saving the world on the outside but the truth of the matter is this, if you are not doing any of it from a pure heart than it is useless and no better than the Pharisees keeping the law. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all else and who can know it? (Jer 17:9). The choices we make in our Christian walk go beyond our own ability to check off a list of rules as to how to have a great a Christian walk in front of people. Our choices come in the quiet moments alone with God....when it is you and Him and He alone knows why you are doing the things you do. Are you doing them for public affirmation, are you doing them because you feel like you have something or someone to prove yourself to, are you doing them because you feel like He wouldn't love you if you didn't do them so you are working for his love out of your insecurities or are you just truly doing them out of obligation or religion or are you staying so busy doing things in effort to keep yourself from dealing with the bigger issues at hand? I've done all of them at different times in life to varying degrees. Your heart can deceive you. My heart has deceived me.
I think through the last few years of my life and I was often times just barely surviving, thanking God that I had a relationship with Him before this storm had taken place. I knew my choices to hold onto Him were coming out of a place of brokeness & necessity to remain somewhat sane (although the person I had been before was quickly changing) in the midst of my pain I could never have imagined the depth it would bring that I so desperately needed in my life and then it would also expose so many ways my heart had deceived me and it was ugly. My prayers now have been 'search me oh God, and KNOW my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts See if there is ANY offensive way in me..... Psalm 139 (of course) 23-24 and then get rid of it God..all the ugly stuff. Let God check your heart when making choices in your walk with Him. Let your prayer be that God would reveal your own heart motives to you with every choice you make whether you are walking on a mountain or through a valley.
It goes so far beyond whether or not you can get an "A" for all the rules you follow. Even more heartbreaking is the scripture in James 1:23-24 when he said "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." So, you just have an illusion of a walk with God but are forgetting what it says when making difficult choices in life. What good is having a form of godliness but denying its power? How can somebody have a form of godliness but deny its power? They haven't dealt with their heart motives. Choosing to just follow a list of rules without ever letting God transform your heart, or letting Him search your heart will render you powerless and empty. Choose to let the Word of God sink deep into your heart and allow Him to change your heart, heal you, lead you from the inside out, it may mean you will still make mistakes. Scratch that....you will make mistakes but from the depths of your heart, cry out to walk this life and make choices that honor Him...not because it's the "right" thing to do or because this is just the way you've always done it but because He has truly transformed your heart and you are serving Him because you truly love Him and want to do all the things we read about in His word. So, in all the choices you make daily choose to have a heart following after God, after all, it is so much more fulfilling than an all A report card with no heart transformation.
