Choose Life

November 4, 2018

Somewhere in the mid 1940s my mother and father attended a small Baptist church in San Antonio where dad was stationed as he served our country in the Army Air Corps. They heard the Gospel preached and responded together, professing a newfound faith in Christ. That evening set in motion a life trajectory that not only changed their lives, but also the lives of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

I’ve watched and listened to people whose family backgrounds are completely different than mine. Abuse of alcohol and drugs, infidelity and divorce are so commonplace for so many people that they can’t even conceive of life being any different. It is the world they inhabit; like a fish is unable to understand wet, they know only discord and chaos. When exposed to a better way, they are often attracted to it, but it just as often takes time for them to understand enough to choose something different from what they know. 

I am grateful tonight that I never had to make that choice because it was never a part of the life I knew. Almost from the beginning, faith in Christ was a part of my life; it has been the air I’ve breathed for more than fifty years, and consequently, I’ve been spared so much of the bondage and chaos that so many people live with on a daily basis. So I pray for those whose life experiences have wounded and blinded them to the love and grace of God and from the life he offers them, that his tender mercy will break through so they will turn from self-destructive choices to Jesus Christ who alone can give them what they are unknowingly looking for.