Choose Wisely
We’re in a weird season. Two months ago I could not have imagined the turn our world would take. If I spend too many hours on social media or watching the news it can become overwhelming to think about the impact this virus is having and will continue to have on our community. Depending on which posts I read, I can hear that this is everything from a government conspiracy to enforce control, to a plan to eliminate the aging population, to a political game to destroy a party, and the list goes on. I could get lost in the negativity and the accusation. It would be so easy. I have spent much of my life battling anxiety, and it would be easy to invite that voice back in, to allow it to overshadow everything else. But in this season, I refuse.
I refuse to be a slave to anxiety. I refuse to allow hate to take root. I refuse to allow fear to make me selfish. I refuse to allow anger to spew over onto those around me.
I also refuse stick my head in the sand and pretend everything is ok. I refuse sit back and enjoy my family at home, and ignore the hurting around me. I refuse to think of this as someone else’s problem. I refuse to disengage.
Right now may not look like anything any of us were planning, but right now is the only guarantee we have. We can anxiously wait for the future, or passively wait for this to end, or we can stop, and look around. Your life, your calling, your adventure is right now. It’s not on hold. It’s not later. It’s not when this is over. It is here, in this moment, in the waiting. What is God calling you to do. Who is He calling you to become. God is not quarantined. He is not waiting for this to end so we can get back to work, He is here, working, right now.
So today, I challenge you to choose joy. To choose life. To choose growth. Ask God where He is leading. Not out of busy-ness or the need to be defined by something. Ask Him, because you are in a uniquely quiet season and have a unique ability to stop and listen. Is He is calling you to rest? Is He is calling you to serve? To be a voice of encouragement, or a prayer warrior, or to donate all your extra toilet paper? Is it a season of learning, or just being present? Maybe it’s a season of listening, intentionally, to Him, to your family, to your friends? Can you find joy in the sunshine again, in the sound of the birds returning, in the awakening of spring? Can you find childlike joy in the dogs playing, or the kids’ making up silly songs? Can you rediscover a slower pace in trimming hedges and mowing lawns. Can you rediscover the art of emailing letters, or the really old art of handwriting them?
Whatever it looks like for you in this season, you have a choice. You may not like all the choices, they may not be the choices you wanted, but you have a choice. Choose wisely.
“I Refuse” by Josh Wilson
“I don’t want to live like I don’t care, I don’t want to say another empty prayer, oh I refuse
to sit around and wait for someone else, to do what God has called me to do myself, oh I could choose, not to move, but I refuse.”