Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Are We There Yet?



“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.”
I Corinthians 10:23

Most everyone reading this blog has probably had the experience of driving on a toll road. You pay to travel on that road because it is either the shortest, most direct or the quickest, most express way to get from here to there (whatever your ‘here’ and ‘there’ may be)! In this neck of the woods it is the New York State Thruway System. If I wanted to travel from Rochester to New York City and avoid all of the small towns, all of the traffic lights and tourist traps along the way I could choose to use this road.
But, for that privilege, it will cost me something.
The call of God on my life (and yours’ for that matter) is also a privilege.
I would say there is no greater privilege.
But it too comes at a cost.
Like the toll booth collector who takes my money for the ‘privilege’ of traveling Interstate 90 in New York State and allows me entrance on this road there are things which I must surrender in order to pursue that call on my life. I have never been told I have to travel the thruway. I make a choice. So too with the call of God. I make choices every day that strengthen that call or diminish and/or distract me from it.
Not all of the choices are a simple as ‘good’ or ‘evil’.
Sometimes I must choose between ‘good’ and ‘best’ or as someone else
once described it I can choose between ‘good’ and God.
There may be many, many permissible ‘things’ (just as there is often multiple routes to a destination) as I travel in life but if I want to stay on that thruway to the call of God in my life I will find it necessary to choose (as will you) between what is permissible and what is beneficial.

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