Photo by Cottonbro from Pexels

Opening a gift is one of the things children of nearly age from one to ninety-one enjoy. Whether it’s tied with fancy ribbons or ordinary string our curiosity is piqued about what may be inside. Sometimes it’s something we have always hoped for and other times we may wonder what the gift giver was thinking. 

The gift may be something we cherish or delight in and rarely use so it doesn’t wear out or get damaged or be something that lays on a shelf and is soon forgotten. It might be so useful to us that we use it so much that it wears out before we wish.

Most of us get a hint of how someone feels about a gift by their response when the tissue paper falls aside and the lid comes off. The facial reaction and the words spoken even if we are not thrilled usually are evident. Many of us have someone come to mind from seeing the gift opening just a few weeks ago at Christmas.

Photo by Antoni Shkraba from Pexels

Some gifts are not wrapped or ones that we open. They come baked into who we are from the time we were born and get discovered along the way. There may be a talent for music and rhythm or coordination that leads us into sports. We may be a wizard with numbers or catch on to languages and words faster than most but there is one gift we all receive and use every day more times than we can count.

What gift is that?

The gift God gave us of choice when He created humankind is one we use every day all day long. It’s so much a part of us we may not even think of it as a gift or notice how we use it at times. But it behooves us to not ignore the power it unleashes and how it can change everything from whether we are late for school or work, whether we are grateful or complaining, and whether we develop healthy relationships or alienate those with whom we have contact, and more.

We don’t always want to acknowledge our choice with words like “I didn’t have a choice” or “I didn’t think about it” but if we are honest that’s really our desire to hide from a choice that we know or discover was not the best one.

Think about your love of ice cream. You know you should limit how often and how much you have of this delectable dessert but it’s your favorite and there are several flavors that you especially like. You’ve had a full day and want to treat yourself for all you accomplished so you choose to get some ice cream, maybe just one small scoop. That wouldn’t hurt too much but what happens?

Photo by Campus Production from Pexels

“What you choose takes you over and compels you. Your resolve is so powerful that it forms its own highway and drives you toward its arrival. Once your choice is made you do not steer. It steers you.”  Martha Kilpatrick

Okay, so maybe ice cream isn’t the best example but what about a besetting sin you cannot seem to resist. Maybe you have a hard time following through on something and when confronted and get caught again, you choose to lie about why you failed to complete something. Perhaps you were committed to stay on a budget you need to work your way out of debt but just for fun start browsing on some of your favorite websites and see a sale too good to resist. How do you handle choice then?

You see, each little choice puts you on a path toward the next choice and if you aren’t careful you can soon find yourself along a little brick road you did not intend. Think of Bilbo and the ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

“You are today what you chose yesterday. Choice may seem unconscious, but it is never so. Choice is always deliberate. Choosing can be casual, floating lazily with the tide. Indecision is a decision-to not decide and as such…rules. Decision leads us. You choose. You always choose.”  Martha Kilpatrick

We may have something rise up to disagree with Kilpatrick’s statement but a long pause and deeper consideration will likely bring us to see more of the condition of our hearts that determined the choice.

Scripture gives us lots of examples most of us would know. Eve chose the fruit she and Adam were told not to because it looked good. Esau sold his birthright because he was hungry. Peter denied he knew Jesus in the courtyard because he was frightened. Martha chose to be busy about making a meal for Jesus but her sister, Mary, chose to sit and simply be with Jesus.

Free will. Choice. Gifts that we use every day often determined by the intention of our hearts we had not even considered before we made the choice.

“Free will is a gift distinguishing us from all creation. God gives that gift and will not rescind it. He offers utmost respect to our intention. Would that we gave it such regard.” Martha Kilpatrick

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

How easily we can get upended or diverted on our way to somewhere. It would be lovely if it happened rarely, but that would not be true for many of us. It can happen going from one room to another, one task to another. We don’t even need to get into our cars and type in the address on our GPS to get lost. It seems to happen for dozens of reasons and sometimes no reason at all that we can discern.

For some of us it is a bane to our existence, but others of us either go with the flow or gave up on purposefulness a long time ago after too many detours with no forward movement.

“What seems true is that something in life, on the highways or in our hearts, is always being installed, or being repaired, or being torn down for the next installation. Or the mess of the repair or tear-down is being cleaned up and cleared out.”

Anne Lamott in Small Victories

These sorts of things disorient us, and we find ourselves diverted. Even without such significant things as those Anne Lamott writes, phones ring, people need us, illness strikes, and the long list waits to sabotage us the next day despite all our good intentions. Of course, there are the things that are inside of us that do an equally good job.

How often do these words resonate with you? – But I really meant to… (No show of hands needed.) Our good intentions will never be enough because rhythms get upended and life keeps happening.

“Here is the one tiny problem with intentions: There are always uninvited voices and obstructions, nattering and nipping and whining and tugging at you. Always.”

Anne Lamott in Small Victories

Perhaps we have forgotten that all of this natural world is made up of patterns and rhythms that may seem to be disrupted and yet go on. They are so common that if we lose sight of the wonder of many of them and what they might reveal about life itself were we to tune in to the Author of Life.

Some nights, some times of darkness, can be so intense and daunting that we cannot grasp the reality of a daybreak or a movement toward light. Yet every morning reminds us of how light chases after darkness to defeat its hold on us.

“We never get used to it. Daybreak is always a surprise. There are times, of course, when we fail to respond. But when that happens we instinctively know that it is due to a deficiency within ourselves, whether from disease or depression. If the repetitions in nature are never boring, how much less the repetitions in God.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

But that points to the issue, doesn’t it? Are there repetitions in God in our life? Is He a footnote to our day, week, month or even year or is He the heading from which each of those begins? Do we oblige to what we think is important on one day of the week or do we recognize He is life itself moment by moment?

The answer to those questions will reveal a great deal about how prevalent diversions upend us.

The life of Christ gives us a glimpse of purposefulness that was often interrupted. Yet those interruptions were also purposeful on behalf of others in ways that highlighted the truth of who He was and is. Christ knew well his mission and goal and was not diverted but was never rigid about his moments spent here. His priorities never wavered. His movement was ever forward and upward toward the Father’s purpose.

Long before Stephen Covey identified the habits we would all need to know that would help us grow and develop toward effectiveness, Christ understood. He began with the end in mind and put first things first. We falter on that time and time again. Even when we think we are good at long-term planning, most of us look at the next level academically or professionally or even retirement as the “end in mind.” And we hear that from financial planners across the board whose advice is not poor but fails to recognize the more eternity focused the end is and should be. What would happen if we changed that?

“Here, then, is the clue to our erratic life patterns, our inconstancy, our unfaithfulness, our stupid inability to distinguish fashion and faith: we don’t rise up early and listen to God. We don’t daily find a time apart from the crowd, a time of solitude and silence, for preparing for the day’s journey.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

And there you have it – the key to the long view toward eternity lived out each day – daily time apart with God. That long view takes into account there will be unplanned interruptions along the way, things we had not seen when we mapped things out. That long view will undergird our choice of that time apart each day as a requirement for the journey of that next moment or day because it will provide provision for what we do not know we will even need.

How easily we succumb to the temptations one-by-one! It is not unlike an avalanche that can begin with the smallest unstable thing that begins to tumble down creating and attracting other unstable things. Gradually it becomes larger and moves faster creating more and more destruction in its wake.

Century after century Satan uses his wiles in the same pattern. He uses ploy as his most effective strategy.

By definition a ploy is “a cunning plan or action designed to turn a situation to one’s own advantage”. There is no need for him to alter his strategy because it has proven effective time and time again no matter how erudite we may think we are.

Any of us can name specific wiles and wickedness he produces as a result of the ploy, but if we look at the ‘big picture” we must come to grips with his ultimate desire and that is to divide.

First, he would seek to divide us from the Lord for nothing would please him more than to rob Him of us, His trophies won on the cross. Second, he would seek to divide us from one another weakening and destabilizing one and then another. Whether the result is our worship of him in fact matters little to him so long as we forfeit our commitment to the crux of our connection to Him and one another.

Daily life provides Satan with the fodder he needs. Nearly any situation or circumstance can be used to distract us from our focus on the Lord and who He has created and called us to be. ANYTHING. I know it and you know it. I have experienced it and you have experienced it as well.

Inevitably one of the results is to become anxious or fearful because things are not under our control. What any of us does next will determine how successful the ploy will be?

If we quickly recognize it for what it is and turn our focus back on the Lord, our faith and trust is strengthened and he loses the skirmish. If we do not and let’s face it, none of us do so all of the time, then he nudges us to try to take control ourselves in more ways than we can even count or want to admit. (I don’t want to give him credit by listing them here.) He can be effective in this because he has duped us into allowing fear to become larger than life and larger than God.

We lose sight of the key words and principles we are called to live by.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

1 John 4:18 (ESV)

Okay, none of us love perfectly or perhaps even come close to it, but God does love perfectly. He loves us perfectly. He shows us that in countless ways despite our fallibility, our station in life, or our current circumstances.

If the ploy causes us to doubt that and the truth that such love will always be faithful in providing for us, we will quickly look to what John Eldredge calls “less wild lovers” to rescue us or provide for us. Those “less wild lovers” can come in many forms, sizes, and disguises. They can include any and all addictions, self-protection, staying in a victim mode, operating in self-righteousness that belies the truth of our pride, looking to someone who will agree with us whether they speak truth or not, and more. They can include relying on organizations, institutions, or any other entity instead of the Lord.

These then open us to the second punch of the same ploy. We start to fear and distrust others unless they agree with us and support our shaky position. Our fear of others points to the downfall of not loving others as ourselves.

The end result of the interweaving of this two-pronged ploy is increased division. If we, His children, are one body destined to live with Him in one Kingdom then when we fall prey to the ploy, we exemplify what Jesus taught in Matthew.

“But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

Matthew 12:25 (NKJV)

In the end of all time and all things, scripture makes clear that what we will be judged on will be whether we have loved the Lord with all our heart, mind, and soul and if that has brought forth His character in us so that we demonstrate that by loving one another. That is the litmus test each of us faces.

At present, it would seem the skirmishes in the two-pronged ploy are succeeding with too many of us so that we find ourselves arrayed in battle one against another while proclaiming we are a part of the same Kingdom.

Our rhetoric has shifted from eloquence based on Kingdom truth to empty rhetoric replete with hateful, fear mongering words and tones whether our position has merit or not. I might think we are in danger here of not only harming whatever cause we believe in, but more importantly tearing down the Kingdom.

The ploy can be defeated.

The power of the Lord exceeds any and all that Satan can and does throw at us. The answer comes when we lay aside our sin, our self-righteousness, our pride, and anything that is not like the Lord.

The Lord showed us the principle and our purpose before He returned to His Father. I think it behooves each of us to reflect each day on what He pointed to as the foundation for our speech and our actions and we can only do it when we first submit our will to Him:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  

Matthew 22:36-40 (ESV)

Words bombard us every day from the outside world as well as within us. They are what help us make connections with God, ourselves, and others, but they can also be the source of disconnection just as easily. They can be tricky for extroverts as well as introverts and any type of the popular enneagram. They can come easily to us or we can struggle to find words, but no matter where we fit in all this – they matter.

Sometimes we wish they mattered less than they do, but we cannot escape that they are major players in each of our lives and they matter to God as well as is evident in scripture:

“And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.”

Matthew 12:36 (NLT)

If that verse has never given you pause, I would be surprised because it does me each time I read it or read through the book of Matthew and bump into it. If you want an even clearer picture, try reading it in The Message:

“You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.”

Matthew 12:34-37 (MSG)

These were the words of Jesus spoken to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, but are words for us all to heed.

Often we look for just the right word when we are writing something or for a specific occasion when we are seeking to be precise. Sometimes seeking the right word has self-seeking purposes so we can persuade someone according to our wishes or designs. Most of us know how to be persuasive if we choose or need to be so. And I love Mark Twain’s thoughts on choosing the right word.

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word, said Mark Twain, is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. A single word, if it is the right word, can illuminate and strike fire all at once.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

How true! Those with words that spark lightning are the orators, authors, and great preachers of old that stirred the hearts, minds, and spirits of so many and echo today. But there are also words that are almost right used by charlatans, dictators, and false prophets that can seduce us to follow dark paths that destroy us.

You see, the right words are significant, but only if they are the truth.

Spurgeon’s words remind us that lies too often come quickly from our mouths and ears and often we listen and give a home to them before we ever determine if they are the truth. How evident that is in the scene in the Garden of Eden where Eve is seduced to eat the apple by the serpent’s almost right words full of deception. Such words are so palatable that we imbibe them and relish them much the way we do ice cream over spinach without considering the consequences.

Lies work on us. They always have. And they are used by children as well as parents, students as well as teachers, laity as well as preachers, citizens as well as governments, and lovers of all types seeking to gain our favor.

In the process of all this and more, lies spoken as almost right words lead us into bondage. Truth, however, brings freedom.

“We live on the gossip of the moment and the rumors of the hour. It is not as if we never hear the truth at all, but we don’t realize its overwhelming significance. It is an extra aside. We have no sense of continuity. We respond to whims, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Then Scripture if placed before us. Words are assembled and arranged, and powerful patterns of truth become visible.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

How truly Peterson writes and holds a mirror up to help us to see more clearly. How wise the path that uses Scripture as the compass to set the course, measure the merit of the words we use or hear. But we are inconsistent at best in doing so.

We can start out with the best of intentions, but then the almost right word distracts us. It sounds like it’s right, sounds reasonable, and away we go following it along without checking on its veracity and those who mean to seduce us know that very well and count on it, but Scripture isn’t about seducing us.

“Scripture’s task is to tell people, at the risk of their displeasure, the mystery of God and the secrets of their own hearts – to speak out and make a clean breast.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

Ah, there it is! The goal of truth is not our ease or comfort. Often it is used to incise our hearts to remove what is not like Christ so we can grow and develop as He intended all along and allow the gifts, abilities, skills, and design of his making to flourish.

“Like apples of gold in settings of silver, is a word spoken at the proper time.”

Proverbs 25;11 (NASB)

So the right word is evidenced by it being the truth.

“Honestly written and courageously presented words reveal reality and expose our selfish attempts to violate beauty, manipulate goodness and dominate people, all the while defying God.

Honest writing shows us how badly we are living and how good life is. Enlightenment is not without pain. But the pain, accepted and endured, is not a maiming but a purging.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

Resolve is a characteristic needed for pursuing nearly any goal in any area of our lives. It relates to determination and resilience that then provides something akin to a three-legged stool from which we can lay out a path. They are similar, but not exactly the same if you tease them out a bit.

Resolve is the decision I make to set my alarm to get up in time to have my quiet time, eat a healthy breakfast, and exercise. Determination is what helps me not hit snooze and get up as I resolved to do. Resilience is what helps me recover from messing up and hitting snooze one day and not making it a habit or it’s what keeps me going with the difficulties I bump into to pursue the healthy goals I have resolved to achieve.

Throw in a healthy portion of self-discipline along the way and we have a formula that can serve us well with getting our day started, pursuing excellence in our education, and competence in our chosen profession or occupation. But each day we inevitably have things that come up that cause us to shift our priorities, some are outside of our control. And when that happens it can be far too easy for the three-legged stool to crumble.

None of it sounds easy or fun. I know that well. A decision to change anything is a complex goal that has lots of little components that can upend us even when we start out with a great deal of resolve.

I am a pretty self-disciplined person, and it has served me well in more than a few areas of my life, but it isn’t a quality that extends across all the areas of my life. And it is in those areas that I know I need more than a little accountability with someone else involved to help me stay on track to do better than I would do on my own. I am guessing that might be true for some of you as well. Without much thought you can identify some of those areas because they tend to be persistent over time, whether that is related to our preferences or some aspect of our abilities, skills, or giftedness. Maybe it is a combination of all of them with a few other ingredients thrown in.

One of mine is the area of exercise. As I was growing up, I learned to be pretty task-oriented. Based on how I was parented on a small farm meant an abundance of tasks did not allow for a great deal of time for leisure activities. I didn’t feel very coordinated and playground games and physical education classes confirmed that to me year-by-year. But age reminds you that your body is shifting in ways that show passage of time.

Resolve to exercise was spotty at best so before I retired, I hired a personal trainer for about seven years to assure I would attend to this deficit. That taught me that my body and abilities could change, but when retirement came and that was not an option that seemed open, my resolve was spotty again. So, about several years ago the resolve got kicked up a notch with some of my husband’s health issues and we both joined a program and eventually hired a personal trainer to help us.

I know some of you LOVE to exercise via some sport (if not the traditional workout) and I applaud you. My husband had a friend when he was on active military duty who loved to run and even if the training that day was exhausting and involved a long run, this friend would often come home at the end of the day and run another five or ten miles. Amazing to us both!

All these concrete physical goals are not the only areas where the three-legged stool is needed. They are essential for our spiritual lives as well.

The idea of a resolve to have a quiet time consistently each day is not something we will disagree with, but it is one of the things that can be more easily upended than we ever imagine. Interruptions happen – not only from outside of us, but from inside our own heads. The enemy of our souls understands that because he knows we need an absolute foundation in prayer and the Bible to withstand the devices he sets up to seduce us.

“It is not enough to remember; we must hear it again. Prayer is the act in which we hear it again. It is not enough to carry memory verses around with us; we need daily encounter with the resonant voice of God. Prayer is that encounter. Situations change. Does God change? We pray. We listen. God speaks his word again – the same word! – and we are restored and renewed in our commitment.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses

I have lived a full life and much of it has kept my calendar overcrowded at times. Even in retirement I have discovered that there is much to do that can fill a day pretty quickly, but one thing I have learned is if my resolve to have my quiet time in the morning slips away, the essential restoration and renewal I need does not happen.

Over time I have had days where that did not happen because I allowed the dailyness of this life to press in or an early morning appointment interfered, but experience has taught me the value of determination to fight for the time. Why? There are many reasons, but the evidence I know is that I am much more likely to accomplish a long list of “to do” if that time happens first and without that, restoring renewal doesn’t happen to sustain me with whatever life throws at me.

“Life is moving and dynamic, changing and growing. The world challenges and attacks. The word of God does not change and my call does not change, but the relationship is under constant assault and must be renewed constantly. Resolve is essential but not enough. In prayer God provides renewal. Prayer is not so much the place where we learn something new, but where God confirms anew the faith to which we are committed.”

Eugene Peterson in Run with the Horses