what will I choose?

Last fall felt impossibly hard.  With the holidays around the corner, we had just settled into our new home.  Packing up a lifetime of memories and starting over was needed, and yet exhausting in every way.  Our situation felt like a death and I didn't know what to do or how to do it.  Processing was difficult for myself alone, and yet the processing of four children of different ages and understandings were also mine to navigate.  Sometimes you just want to shut off, and yet this was not a possibility.  Though I was surrounded by a new circle of people that so lovingly and beautifully walked the road with me, things also felt very much alone when no one else could understand.  God and I had a lot of heart to hearts.  I didn't ask for this and didn't want it.  Why, God?  Isn't that the question we all want the answer to?  God so directly spoke to me in that time that I was asking the wrong questions.  It wasn't why, but what?  What was God doing?  How could He... how would He use this?  I staked claim on the promise that He works all things for our good and held onto it for dear life even when it felt like I couldn't breathe anymore.  I redirected my why's and fully believed in the what.  I remember quoting Scripture through tears, saying it out loud to put voice to it.  It was all I had to cling to, because nothing else felt stable or possible.

If God put you there, He put it in you.  Over time, my heart has begun to learn if I can get past me and focus on the One who is in me and with me, faith will abound.  My greatest enemy is distraction.  Distraction of all the other voices resounding in my mind.  Who are you?  You're not good enough.  You are not qualified.  Who cares what you have to say?  What do others think?  The lies spiral in an endless cycle.  It can be deafening if I allow those voices to be the loudest voice.  The only voice I long for is the very One who created me and loves me more than comprehension.  The voice that says You are mine.  You are called.  You are equipped.  You are my vessel.  I have a plan and purpose for your life.  Trust Me.

Over the past years, I have ended up in countless situations and opportunities I never could have imagined.  The surrounding circumstances left me with zero doubts God placed me there, but my insecurities attempted to convince me otherwise.  If God put me here, He will equip me, played on a loop in my mind.  I've heard it said "say it until you believe it", and I've taken that at face value.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  The greatest thing I've found to be true?  Those steps of faith have been the greatest rewards imaginable.  Has it been pain free and easy?  Not even in the slightest.  But it was never about me to begin with.  It is all Him, and I've been able to witness His work firsthand.  And in the midst of it, He gave me the strength and ability to accomplish every task - even the ones I thought I could never do.  Because He is always with us.  He was never asking me to do any of it alone.  My only job was to just do.  To show up.  To be faithful.  To act upon that still small voice and let Him do the rest.

I listened to a podcast the other morning and just smiled at God's affirmation.  We are asking the wrong questions.  Ask a different question.  Philippians 1.  Paul was in prison and writing to his dear friends and fellow Believers.  He asked three questions: What does it matter?  What does it mean?  What will I choose?  Every life circumstance can be filtered through these questions.  Paul could've chosen to gripe and complain about his current situation - in jail.  Instead, he proceeded to encourage them over and over again to rejoice regardless of their circumstances.  To press on towards the prize.  He chose to believe Truth and realize his time in prison would further advance the gospel.  We cannot control our physical circumstances, but we can control our soul's circumstance and have the mind of Christ.  What will I choose?  Will I choose joy, or to wallow in my sorrows?  Will I choose the Spirit of Christ in me, or my flesh?  There's always a choice.  I heard in another podcast this morning, "If love is our lens, we will see God everywhere."  And that's what I want to see.  That's what I want to choose.  Paul came to the conclusion, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him." 

All else is insignificant compared to knowing Him.  Even in a pit, Joseph chose God.  Even in chains, Paul chose Christ.  He is what matters.  He is the choice.