Making Wise Choices!

Deuteronomy 30:15 states, “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.” I don’t think he set before us two choices when we have one. God didn't set us up to have the anger, frustration, and lack of peace we endure are based on the choices we make. We should take responsibility for our lives and what we are experiencing because we can do something about it by making good choices.

Living deeper is taking the time to go beyond what we want, think and feel to know what we are sensing inside. If you don’t have peace it means you’re not walking in wisdom and making right choices. Freedom isn’t free it, comes with responsibility. Having the ability to choose life or death is an amazing liberty but our choices produce things. The bible calls it sowing and reaping. If you sew wisdom you reap wisdom. And if you sew foolishness, you reap foolishness.

If someone offends you, sitting somewhere and seething with anger and hatred does nothing positive for you. It is foolish. Following God’s word to forgive is choosing wisdom. All what God tells us to do like forgive, believe the best of people, not feeling sorry for ourselves when we are mistreated; are really for our own good, because they are all food for misery. If you want to be happy and peaceful, go deeper to do what you know is right. Every time you do what’s right, when it feels like it’s wrong, you’re growing. Initially when you are doing the right thing, it will feel different. Growing is doing what you know is right when it feels wrong. You should be happy that you can make a change.

Choosing the right thing isn’t always easy. In Luke 5 with Jesus and fishermen, they had been fishing and were tired and frustrated, but when they encountered Jesus and did what Jesus told them to do just because he said so, they saw the positive results. He told them that the reason they weren’t getting any fish is because they were fishing in shallow waters, so he told them to go deeper. The reason we get in trouble is our, “I want to think, I feel, keeping my flesh happy” mentality. When the fishermen listened to Jesus they had an overflowing abundance. We should do what God wants us to do. Our attitude should be, I don’t necessarily want to, but I will because God said so. David said in Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it. Life isn’t perfect but rejoicing and being glad in it is a state of mind. People don’t always do the right thing, but get over it. Oh how our lives would change if we make better choices.

Go beyond what you feel when making choices. Take actions that don’t necessarily feel good, but you know are right and you’ll have an overflow and abundance to give to others. Your children watch your actions and repeat them. So be parents who show wisdom. Wisdom does now what it will be happy with later on. Wisdom is not quick results oriented. Make right choices now. Proverbs 2:1-6 is on the moral benefits of wisdom. It states, “My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding  indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. “   Today people have too loose of an attitude towards God and his word. We should be afraid not to obey God. We like the love and mercy part of God, but there’s also a justice part of him because he is a just God. We should love, respect and reverence him enough to be obedient to him

Seek God’s wisdom. Cry out for it and wait on it every day. Don’t be foolish and reap the rewards of foolishness. Proverbs 4:8 states, “If you prize wisdom, she will make you great. Embrace her, and she will honor you.” To get promoted even at work you must use wisdom. When you steal at work, even little things like stationary, get to work late, leave early, play on the internet all day long, gossip, manipulate, back bite etc., that’s not using wisdom. Walk in integrity and do the right thing when nobody is looking because true promotion comes from God. Behave wisely and make yourself so valuable that your employer can’t do without you. Don’t be the kind of person who does the least to get by. Do an excellent job at work till you leave a job. Don’t become lazy during the last month you are there because you know you are leaving a job, because the way you leave is the way you will enter another job.

As long as David acted in wisdom, he was blessed and promoted. When he behaved foolishly he had bad situations like wars occur. Foolishness means acting without common sense. When you have common sense, there are things you don’t say or do. If you have common sense and you want people to work for you, you treat them right. If you want to want people like you, you don’t try to control them. Living life imprudently, inconsiderately, and being dull and foolish is unwise. There are areas to use wisdom in your life, because wise choices produce power. For example, using your time wisely shows wisdom. We all get the same 24 hours a day and some people get so much done while others don’t. Poor time management affects you. You should do things in margins and give yourself time to recover. Give yourself time to breathe in between jobs. Decide not to live a stressed out and frustrated life anymore.

In anything you do where you are over exerting yourself, you must realize that you are not the only one that can do it. Even if you are helping people, it won’t help anyone if you kill yourself trying to help them. Jesus came so you can enjoy your life. It’s your responsibility to enjoy your life and only work reasonably. You are breaking the divine rules of nature when you don’t rest. Some of us are too busy over working and over exerting ourselves. This is typified when we have too many days of anger, frustration and hurry. If we have any of these occasionally that’s normal, but if it’s a habit that occurs frequently, then it’s a problem, because it means we are constantly living like that. You won’t be happy, you will make others unhappy and you are the only one that can do something about it.

If you aren’t happy, do something about it. It’s useless to be unhappy and blame somebody else for your unhappiness. Jesus shows us things to do or not to do. If we obey him, things change for the better. Making wise choices brings peace to our lives. It is one of the most valuable things in the world. Be trusted to do your very best. Learn to make the right choices in every area of your life on the solid foundation of God’s word.

Realize that you can’t undo the past, but you can create a better future. I know millionaires, big name preachers, and movie stars who are unhappy with their lives. In Philipians 4:4, Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  You can say to yourself, “What is she talking about? I’m in prison, how can I rejoice? But Paul was in prison when he wrote that, so regardless of your circumstances you can still rejoice.

Source: Joyce Meyer 8/24/11

Edited: Susan Majek