We make so many choices in our lives every day.  What will we wear?  What route to take to work?  Will we work as expected or goof off?  Going to the grocery store means choosing from hundreds of varieties of beans, toothpaste, cereal, applesauce.  Sometimes we can be overwhelmed by our choices.

Tom and I have something we often say to each other, “We can do anything we want, but we can’t do everything we want.”  Saying yes to working at Fort Frederica means we have to say no to working somewhere else.  Being retired has expanded our choices instead of restricting them.

Sometimes we fret and worry about our choices.  Right now my brother-in-law is trying to get his parents to move into assisted living.  Everyone agrees that they need to move – except his parents.  Doing what is best, making the right choices, can be difficult and frustrating.

Two Bible verses help me when I am trying to make life choices for me or give advice to someone else.  First, from Joshua 24:15, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  The second, from Deuteronomy 30:19b, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”

Choose God.  Choose life.  I find that these two Bible verses are pretty good guidelines for most of the choosing we do in our lives.  When I am making choices about what product to buy, these two guidelines reveal that these are not choices that make a kingdom difference.  However, if I am choosing how to spend my time – devotions or a video game, encouraging a friend or watching a television show – it might make a difference.

When we choose God and choose life, we are choosing love.  We are choosing to be instruments of mercy.  We are choosing to use and spend our lives in God’s service.

Do you have a hard decision to make?  How can you choose God and choose life?