The Cost of Right and Wrong Choices

Monday 3/26/2012 5:05 AM

The theme of my devotional material today is “The Cost of Right Choices.”  As I read through Psalm 56 and Acts 14, the assigned scriptures for the day, the memories of fourteen years ago came flooding back.  At the time I felt as if God were calling me away from my job at Valley Christian, that I held for twenty-one years, to something new and different.  That Monday morning I handed in an unsigned contract for the coming fall and decided to pursue employment at Cerritos College, my church, or some other school.  It would be another two months before I found a job but that morning the words of Psalm 56:3-4 were just what I needed to hear.  “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.  In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid.”  I had just quit the only job I had ever known with no new job on the immediate horizon and yet I had a deep sense of peace.  The day after I handed in the unsigned contract I wrote these words in my journal.  “After handing in a blank contract yesterday I experienced a calm over my spirit that I haven’t had for a long time.  I think the act of turning in the contract was a very real way of turning my problems over to God.  My future is literally in his hands and I have great peace about it.”

What a difference fourteen years can make.  Last week I gave midterm exams in all of my classes and I have been correcting them early in the morning rather than having my regular devotional time.  I also have spent much of my time preparing my lesson for Children and Worship, which has also taken away from my time of regular reflection on what God is saying or doing in my life.  There is a sense in which I feel like the theme for my devotions this week should be “The Cost of Wrong Choices.”  I miss my time with God in the morning and choosing to do other activities in its place has consequences.

My reading today included this excerpt from Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales.  “…many persons clothe themselves with certain outward actions connected with holy devotion and the world believes that they are truly devout and spiritual whereas they are in fact nothing but copies and phantoms of devotion.”  There is a sense in which I feel like a phantom of devotion over the past week.  While I don’t believe I have clothed myself with outward actions that would make me appear to be truly devout and spiritual to the world I still feel like a counterfeit rather than the real deal.  I hope the coming week will be one in which I can return to my regular morning conversations with God.