PRAYING TO CHOOSE LIFE

CHOOSE LIFE

Choose life.  Seems like a good idea doesn’t it?  In our world of increasing self-centeredness and personal convenience things like abortion and medically assisted suicide become increasingly popular choices as people seek to decide when life begins and when it should end.  In between those beginning and end of life choices are many others that either honour or exploit others, the environment, money etc. for personal gain. 

God sets a choice before us every day – thousands of expressions of it but at the heart is the choice for God that we are introduced to in the Bible with these words:

… I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land …  Deuteronomy 30:19-20

The moments of choice in stories in the Bible are too numerous to mention here.  What we can say is that when people chose to follow their own agendas, it ended in a mess that left them with suffering and sorrow.  When they chose for God’s plan – life – they may have experienced momentary hardship and discipline but the blessings that God promised were theirs.

Our most important choice is the choice to love the Lord our God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him, knowing that He is our life.  That’s the foundation for the greatest commandment that Jesus mentioned when asked: Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40

Lord, you are a generous God and You have set before us today life and death, blessings and curses. 

Everywhere we look, we see tangible proof of Your great care for us. Yet, when it comes to following You, we confess that we often don’t surrender our entire selves. Forgive us for frequently saying one thing and doing another.

Give us grace to love You more than our own pleasures, to listen to Your voice and follow Your ways whether it is convenient or not.  Help us with gratitude and humility to choose life so we can truly live.  May our choices, our words, and our actions line up with Your will in this day.  Amen