Choose Life--Part 2 Unpacking the Passage

I woke up this morning with a list of phone calls waiting for me. My niece was due to arrive shortly and the boys would be stirring soon. Laundry was quietly teasing me about how it had been dry for over 24 hours and still hadn't been folded. You all know the tyranny of the urgent--the unwelcome visitor in all of our lives. So here I was, at my desk--cell phone next to me, sticky note with names and errands listed, and my Bible and journal to the left. So simple. Really. Life or Death? Which would I choose to tackle first--bit of time with God or the deafening demands of day to day living? It's easy enough to argue that those kinds of decisions have nothing to do with choosing life or death, blessings or curses--that those types of choices are not relevant. But in fact, I've found that the opposite is true in my own life. Those are the very decisions that open the door to what the remainder of our day will in fact hold. Those are the decisions--little, insignificant, not seemingly important that separate people who live abundantly from people who exist. When Moses began this discussion about life and death with the Israelites he was 120 years old. Basically he tells them, "Look, I'm gonna kick the bucket pretty soon. I'm passing the baton on to Joshua and this is my last chance to lay it all out for you. You're a people that are special to God--He's set you apart as His own. You have got it made. Literally. But you have to choose whether you are going to follow Him completely in obedience or whether you are going to follow your own whims. One results in blessing and the other in curses. It's that simple. You choose life and get blessed or you choose death and you receive nothing." (Deut. 26-30) Here is a man who has spent the greatest part of his adult life leading a group of Hebrews from slavery into freedom. Here is a man who has watched as time and time again these very Hebrews opted to return to their slave-like tendencies and at times even said out loud, "It would have been better for us if we had stayed in Egypt." He watched these foolish people eat food showered down from God himself and turn around and melt their gold into a cow. They stared life in the face and melted their earthly possessions down into the form of death. He knew their weaknesses. I bet he thought in his heart more than once, "I just don't know if they'll make it to the promise land or not. They are like sea grass that sways whatever direction the wind is blowing. They are weak of faith and they are drawn like metal to a magnet back to slavery, to death." So I understand when he insisted they go through it all with him one last time before he gave up his physical shell here on earth. In Deuteronomy 30:11 Moses says, "This commandment I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it woo remote. It is not in heaven, as though one must say, "Who will go up to heaven to get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" And it is not across the sea, as though one must say, "Who will cross over to the other side of the sea and get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?: For the thing is very near you--it is in your mouth and in your mind so that you can do it." In other words, Moses is saying, "Guys, this is so simple. You don't need some great preacher or some new book or some new approach to understand this. What I am telling you is not locked up in some heavenly realm where only the super spiritual can get it. What I am saying to you is already in your mouths--you've spoken it before to your own children. And it is already in your minds--you can do this!" Then he goes on to say, "Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other. What I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live..." (Deuteronomy 30:15, 16) To have abundant life we must set ourselves in a position to receive it. You can't fill a vessel to overflowing if it isn't positioned under the tap. For a believer, positioning ourselves to receive the overflowing blessing of God we must love the Lord and obey Him. It's that simple. Love and obey. And to make it even more simple--love generally produces obedience as a bi-product. So ultimately we're dealing with just who or what holds our heart's strings. Because if we can follow the path of our heart to who or what may be holding it, we can very quickly determine whether we are positioned under God's tap or whether we are sitting beside it watching the water bursting out like a dam released and wondering why we are empty and thirsty. Lord, in this moment show me the palm that grips my heart. Is it yours, Lord? God help me to let go of the things that are blocking me from being positioned under your overflow of abundant life. Open my eyes that I may see who and what it is that I love, Lord. Cultivate within me a love for you that is greater than any other passion of my soul. Amen.

Choose Life

I couldn't open my eyes--everything became shadows of black and grey. The Dr.'s said I was photo phobic which apparently was a fancy word for extreme light sensitivity. It was a result of an intense headache caused by the infection that had invaded my body. I had been in and out of the emergency room since a standard surgery. For some reason my body didn't heal properly and an infection had taken root. The Dr.'s could not isolate the source and despite their best attempts, life slowly seeped out of my body like the afternoon gives way to darkness of night. I knew it wasn't good and that I needed to fight, but I was so tired and the pain was relentless. If I could just sleep for a few hours, surely I'd feel better. That's what I thought, but it wasn't to be. My condition became worse and the Dr.'s couldn't keep my blood pressure up--my body was choosing death. In those moments, I can't imagine what it was like for my husband. Between fits of consciousness I remember being aware of him, helpless and confused. What could he do? He was at the mercy of a plethora of doctor's best guesses. While they looked at him with blank faces and question mark eyes he silently pleaded to God for help. His wife's body lay grey and limp on a hospital bed and there was nothing in the entire world he could do but pray. And he did. He chose to pray for life. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 says, "Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other. What I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. however, if you turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, I declare to you this very day that you will certainly perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live! I also call on you to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually in the land the lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." The few weeks following my surgery is the closest I have ever come to death. I remember snatches and bits of that time like black and white photos from someone else's life. I remember the ambulance ride--I think it was snowing as they carried my gurney into the posterior mouth of the ambulance. I see the black sky interrupted by flashes of white dust. It fell on my cheeks like ashes. I couldn't remember though, what my babies were wearing the last time I was rushed to the emergency room. I couldn't recall the last words I had whispered to them. I couldn't, no matter how desperately I wanted remember the last drink I had poured for them or the last breakfast meal I had served them. All I could see were their eyes sitting atop their plump cheeks and those sweet little eyes weren't ready to say goodbye to their mommy. And I remember insisting, knowing, declaring without a doubt that it wasn't my time to die. My precious little boys were so young--I hadn't seen them come to know Christ yet. I needed to live. And God granted my heart's desire--he extended my days. I don't know why He brought me to that point, but I do know He gave me life on earth for some time longer. Here in Deuteronomy God gave the Israelites the choice of life or death. The implications of that passage are far reaching. Their extension stretches beyond the physical into the spiritual. Scripture says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." (John 10:10) Make no mistake about it, Jesus' intention for our lives is to give us abundant life--overflowing, continually producing life. The Blue Letter Bible Online Lexicon defines the Greek word used for life here as "life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God." My favorite though are the various words The Blue Letter Bible Lexicon uses to describe the Greek phrase used for abundant. Consider a few of these: "over and above, more than is necessary, superadded, exceeding abundantly, supremely, something further, more, much more than all, more plainly, superior, extraordinary, surpassing, uncommon, pre-eminence, superiority, advantage, more eminent, more remarkable, more excellent." I love the idea that God wants to give me a life that is superadded to by his own Son. The only thing I can liken the kind of life God intends for us is to a brownie. We've all had them--soft and gooey, slightly buttery on the outside and rich chocolate as we bite--brownies are certainly a reminder of how alive we in fact are. But have you ever had one of my brownies? To mine, I superadd. A brownie in my personal opinion isn't good until I've added semisweet chocolate chips to the batter and then I like to blanket the surface with a dark chocolate frosting like a fluffy duvet. There are times when I even add a sheet of cream cheese frosting beneath the dark chocolate layer. Now this brownie is not for the faint of heart--it is for the fully devoted chocolate lovers. The abundant life is for those followers of Christ who are fully devoted--those who continually and consistently choose life. It is my prayer that in the next few posts we can dig into just what it means to choose life pra ctically speaking. How do we choose life from day to day? What does it mean to choose blessing? I believe we make a choice in the words we speak, in the food we consume, in the beliefs we choose to accept as true, in our relationships, in our careers, in our workplaces, with our children and our spouses and our parents. We choose every day whether we will live or whether we will take small steps towards a death. I'd like to dig deeper and I hope you'll join me. Blessings until then, Sarah