Over the years of my life, I have been through many different seasons. I have been through some of the greatest moments of my life. Like getting pregnant and giving birth to my amazing child. Watching that child grow into the most amazing, strong-willed, and caring woman. She gives her heart away to every relationship she has. She will definitely leave an impact on you if you give her the time. I married the love of my life. I watched as he excelled with his music and his writing. These are just a few. But just as we have these greatest moments of life, we have devastating moments as well. Like losing a family member. Having to walk away from the love of your life. Going through job loss. Losing everything you thought you had. To just name a few.
Choices Determine Our Path
You may have asked many times in your life, why? Why are these things happening? Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers. But as I have looked over my life, there is one answer that I know to be true. Your question is why, and my answer is choices. Sometimes the choices we make can be the one thing that turns us down a different path than the one we want to be on. Our choice might not affect us, but it might affect others. Like a person who is drunk, drives home, gets in a wreck, and kills someone. It is horrendous that someone passed away. But it is nothing that person did. It is the choice of the person who drove drunk. We all have free will, and that driver made a choice that will impact their life and your life and many other lives. Those are choices in life that are out of our control. There is nothing we can do to change it.
But let’s focus on the choices that we have made that are in our control – choices that have changed us and put us in a new season in our lives. Think about that decision you made that you knew you should not do but you did it anyway. Maybe you bought a car that you knew deep down you should not, but you did it anyway. Then it was the biggest money pit, and because of it, you had financial hardship for a while. Or a bag that was way overpriced, and you knew you didn’t have the money for it, but hey, you got a credit card, so it will be fine, and now you have tons of credit card debt? Did you get a promotion and go out and get a new car that has a crazy high monthly payment, and then bought a house that was way over your budget, and life was great for a few years until you lost that job, and even though there is a severance package you are looking at your car and house being gone. These are choices that affected you financially, and now you find yourself crying out to God to help you through this time.
What about the choice you made to sleep with that person? Now you are pregnant and are having to figure out how to raise a baby as possibly a single mom with no help or with a man you barely know, or maybe he is trying to take the baby from you. This goes for the guy too. You slept with a woman you barely know, and now you need to help raise a baby. What are you going to do? This choice you made has you crying out to God, “Why, God?”
What about the choice you made at that party to take that pill or snort that line, and now you are hooked on meth or pills and are losing everything. All these choices leave you crying out to God for help.
God Redeems Our Choices
Now, years down the road, you have made it through all these seasons of your life and have overcome and are stronger, and you want to dig deeper in your relationship with God, but you think you are not worthy; you carry the shame of your choices.
But you know what? God does not care about the choices you have made as long as you have turned from them, repented, and are living for Him. He wants to use the choices you made to help others, not to make the same choices. How do I know this, you ask? Because 1. I have been there and made my own choices. And 2. because the Bible is full of stories that prove this.
Let’s look at Jonah, his story is in the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. Jonah was a man that God called to minister to people. Jonah RAN from God. He made a choice to get on a boat and run as far away as he could from what God had told him to do. So, God sent a storm. That storm not only affected Jonah, but it also affected everyone else that was on the boat too. Jonah threw himself overboard because of the storm, and God sent a whale to swallow Jonah. Jonah spent three days in the whale’s belly and survived! He had no food and no water. Can you imagine the smell? The air had to be horrendous. The whale rid Jonah on the shore after three days. Jonah then obeyed God. God still used him, and the people of Ninevah were saved. Jonah made a choice to run, but God still pursued him and used him.
John 4:5-30 is the story of a woman that Jesus meets at a well. Jesus asks her to give him a drink. Jesus is a Jew, and the woman is from Samaria. Normally Jews do not pay any attention to people from Samaria. So, when Jesus asked the woman to give Him a drink, she was shocked. She inquires of Him why he is asking her for a drink. Jesus tells her that if she knew who He was and who she was talking to, she would be asking him for a drink of the Living Water. This perplexes the woman even more. She asks hIm, where can you get this Living Water? Jesus says that he gives the Living Water to those who ask and that He is the water. The woman asks Him to give her Living Water. Jesus says go get your husband. The woman says I don’t have a husband. Jesus tells her that is right because you have had five. The woman is shocked again, and Jesus sends her into the city to tell the city about the Living Water. Despite this woman’s past, Jesus has set her on a new season. She is the first evangelist for Jesus.
Acts 9 is written about a man named Paul. Paul was a man who attacked, jailed, and even killed anyone who followed Jesus. But God had another plan for him. God came down to Paul in a bright light and spoke to him about what he was doing. After this was over, Paul was blind for three days. He didn’t eat or drink during this time. At the end of the three days, God sent Ananias to lay hands on him and pray for him. Ananias was hesitant because of who Paul was. But God told him to go, and he went. Paul was healed. He became the biggest advocate for God in the New Testament. He wrote thirteen books of the Bible. God changed Paul’s season even though he had things in his past. Paul, time and time again, made the choice to trust God.
God Uses The Unlikely
These are just three stories out of the entire Bible. You have Jonah, who literally ran from God, but God still pursued him and used him. You have the woman at the well who chose a lifestyle of sleeping around, but God still offered her his Living Water, and He used her to spread the news that He had come. You have Paul, who chose to attack, jail, and kill people who followed Jesus. But God said I want you. I want you to tell the world about me. There are so many other people in the Bible that God used despite their past and their choices.
Just because you have done things, said things, and thought things does not mean God has given up on you. God chooses us no matter what we have done. He knows the ending and wants us to have a new season in life that is choosing him.
John 3:16 says, For God so loved the world that whoever believes (chooses) in him will have eternal life. Jeremiah 29:11 says For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:12 and 13 says, when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. You have to make the choice to search for him. You have to want to be different. You have to repent and turn away from your old life. I encourage you to take that step now.
Pray this with me…Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart. I ask you to change me. Set me on a new season of my life. I allow you to be the author. I repent of all the things I have done in the past. I thank you for accepting me as I am and cleansing and making me whole. In your name, Jesus. Amen!
I am excited for your new season and encourage you to find a church that accepts you and welcomes you with open arms. Now grab your Bible and dive into it to find more people who have been changed by God.
I have attended CommonGround church for the past 12 years and am thankful for the first day that I stepped inside its doors. Through the leadership of the church I have grown so much in my walk with Jesus. I have gone deeper and I have matured so much. I continue to grow and look forward to go deeper in my love for God. I have a passion for serving people and God. I have been a part of many teams; kids, coffee bar, greeting, food pantry, women’s leadership, prayer team. I currently serve in the 4-5 yr old room in CG lil’ Kids, Prayer team and Intercessory Prayer team, and part of the Women’s Leadership team. I have the pleasure of running the cleaning team for the church. I’ve enjoyed that for the past 11 years.
I work at Tulsa Public Schools, Child Nutrition department in charge of Free/reduced meals and the IT things of Child Nutrition. My daughter, Aspen, graduated from Will Rogers High School in May and also from Tulsa Tech with a photography degree. She is strong and mighty and going to do amazing things. I have also have two step sons, that are grown with families. They are U.S. Marines and I couldn’t be prouder of them.
I enjoy crafting, hanging out with friends, hiking, listening to worship music and spending time with Jesus.
Jeremiah 29:13, You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with your whole heart.