Dear friends in Christ,
This Sunday, one of our readings comes from Deuteronomy. Moses is speaking to God’s people, telling them they have two choices. They can choose to follow God’s commandments, then they will know life and prosperity. Or they can choose to turn away from God, in which case they will know death and adversity.
My experience is that we tend not to like to think about following God’s commandments this way. We don’t much like to think about consequences for turning away, or blessings for turning to God. Now, I’m certainly not suggesting anything remotely like the so-called prosperity gospel peddled by hucksters posing as TV preachers. I do think that the abundant life that Jesus promises—full of an awareness of all that God has done and will do for us—waits for us, if we but repent and turn toward God.
Moses urges the people to “Choose life!” I’ve no doubt that if he miraculously appeared among us today, he’d say the same thing to us.
Our world seems more and more chaotic. Busyness overwhelms us. The news attempts to terrify us. Violence and degradation proliferate. What are we to do?
I think if we turn our hearts and our lives toward God, patterning our lives according to God’s commandments and purposes for us, we will see some changes in our lives. Some of those tasks that seemed urgent will recede in importance. We will remember that fear has no grip on us. Perhaps we will be emboldened by the Gospel to resist degradation and to seek peace. The world might seem more beautiful and less chaotic.
In other words, we might find that we have chosen life.
We know that these decisions are not one-time affairs. Every day we have multiple opportunities to choose life…or not.
Have you chosen life? What is that like? Have you turned away from God? What was that like? What might help you choose life, today and always?
Yours faithfully,
Scott Gunn
Executive Director
Image: Unsplash
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