Every day is full of choices, and today is a normal day. The sun will rise and set. Plants will grow, TV’s will be turned on, and kids will play. But today, just like every other day, is a day full of eternal choices.

I’m not talking about predestination or fate, determinism or destiny. I’m not even talking about freewill or of final destinations. I am speaking of the present. No, not of the present’s impact on eternity, but of the present’s impact on the present, on the here and now.

I’m talking about today. Today: the day of eternal significance.

I’m not talking about good or bad decisions, about healthy habits or ethical quandaries. I’m talking about the choices that we make without thinking, the ones we make on autopilot. Even more, I’m talking about the choices made when we do think. The choices that programmed our autopilot in the first place.

Autopilot has a funny way of doing the things we would have done had we been thinking, while taking all the blame as if we hadn’t been. “I didn’t mean to…” we say, but here we are again in the same old mess, the same old despair. We got here by a choice. A choice to embrace or to deny, to live or to die.

Sometimes our despair is on autopilot too. Numbness. It’s a vehicle we use to fight feeling, while en route to our favorite places of hiding. We have lost the power to cry out “the good I want to do, I don’t do. And the evil I do, I don’t want to do!”

We have forgone repentance for deadness.
We have exchanged life for death.
Peace for…

Hostility. Can you feel it?
“Where are you?”
Can you hear it?

Hiding. Blame. Numbness. Blindness. Unbelief. Original Sin. Human Nature. It’s the way we are. Autopilot. Choices.

“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
Can you hear it?
It’s the still small voice.
His voice, invites a response.
No, it evokes a response.

How will I respond today?

After we fall, repentance is turning. Before we fall, repentance is leaning. But always, repentance is receiving.

It’s turning from the depths of sin to the arms of the Father.
It’s leaning on the Spirit in every thought, action, and moment.
It’s receiving everything that the Son- the one called Jesus- is freely giving.

Grace. Truth. Love.
Kindness. Acceptance. Mercy.
Discipline. Power. Forgiveness.

Our choices do not determine our reality, but they do determine which reality we are living in. Sin allures. It whets our appetite. It deceives us into thinking that evil is good. It deceives and destroys- one choice at a time. But the Kingdom has come. Sins are forgiven. The Father’s love is poured out. His Spirit empowers our choices. The Kingdom is in our midst.

How will I respond today?

Lord, By your Spirit help me to put to death the misdeeds of the body, so that I might live- not someday, but right now, here, in the present. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! My eyes are ever fixed on the Lord, for only He will release my feet from the snare. Amen.

References: Romans 8:6, 7:19, 8:7 Genesis 3:9 Matthew 4:17 Romans 8:13, 7:24-25 Psalm 25:15

I once met a man who used to slay dragons,
the kind everyone was afraid to confront.
But for his courage there was no honor.
People passed him by and went on their way.

As he stood up like a lion,
and died like a lamb.

Fighting our dragons means fighting our demons,
the ones in our wisdom we refuse to believe.
In freedom’s name we’ll break our promises,
and from fiery breath we’ll willingly flee.

But if we stand up like a lion,
we’ll die like a lamb.

The heroes of old, they died poor and alone.
buried like seeds, deep underground.
Hidden from us, and watered by the rain.
living by faith and awaiting the day that they’d..

stand up like like the lion,
and rise like the lamb.

Darkness has taken over your land,
but I’ve come to bring light in abundance again.
I’ll shake the earth and the earth will shake me.
We’ll be cast out like fools because we believe…

when we stand up like the lion,
we’ll rise like the lamb.