CHOICE
18th Nov 2020
We have been given the power to choose, we are not automatons, we have free will and are constantly making decisions that influence our lives both practically and spiritually.
Recently I read a powerful testimony of a young woman who has chosen to be joyful in the face of severe trials. She has a large family, including a child with special needs, and has at the same time been in an ongoing battle with cancer. Yet she lives her life in the hands of her Saviour and demonstrates His life as it flows out from her.
If you or I had to face a minuscule part of what she has lived through, we could easily justify misery and hopelessness, however, she has chosen joy which is totally supernatural and gives her strength both emotionally and physically. She has made the radical decision to keep giving to others, to keep living in contact with Jesus, to keep praying and using spiritual gifts even whilst being scanned and radiated.
Fear and misery are not words either in her vocabulary or used by anyone who knows her story. It’s a work of Jesus giving her supernatural resources and enabling her to live in victory. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Contrast this with totally different circumstances in which the choice has been made to embrace misery. The pain this causes to everyone around is excruciating. Every conversation is a moan or a rant, or rehearsing of very difficult scenarios in the past. But the choice is misery which is both indulged and used as a weapon to attack others.
Neither of these persons have initiated what life has thrown at them, but they have choice in how they deal with what faces them; the difference being, one is manifest in joy, hope, strength in Jesus, the other in loneliness, independence and a life of unhappiness.
Joshua commanded the Israelites, “Choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
Read through Psalm 119, it speaks of so many benefits that lead to joy.
Choosing joy doesn't necessarily change the circumstances, but it changes you!
by Joyce Sibthorpe
