Learning to trust

"God had to bring Abraham to the end of his own strength and to let him see that in his own body he could do nothing. He had to consider his own body as good as dead, and then take God, for the whole work; and when he looked away from himself, and trusted God alone, then he became fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able to perform. That is what God is teaching us, and He has to keep away encouraging results until we learn to trust without them, and then He loves to make His Word real in fact as well as faith."

A. B. Simpson, quoted in Streams in the Desert (emphasis mine)

Choices

I have chosen the way of truth - Psalm 119:30

chose = bachar (Strong’s 977)

To choose, select, elect, determine to have one in particular. The kind of choosing that is made when more than one item is examined, with only one or a few being selected.

(New Spirit Filled Life Bible 'Word Wealth' sidebar - ref. 1 Kings 11:40 - where the Ahijah is prophesying about the fate of David’s line uses this word to describe how David came to be king: “My servant David whom I chose because he kept My commandments and My statutes.”)

In Psalm 119, the psalmist declares he has chosen the way of truth (versus, for example, the way of error, or laziness, or prestige, or wealth, or ambition, or any number of other paths).

I too have many many choices: How do I spend my work time? How do I shop? How do I spend money generally? How do I keep my house? How do I respond to needs and requests for prayer? How do I spend leisure? Even the decision to do nothing is a choice.

I make many resolutions to do better – to memorize more Scripture, to pray more and with greater focus, to play the piano again, to spend less time in mindless but unproductive activities like watching TV, to generally to be more intentional and less carried away by the whim of the moment.

Of course there are times when circumstances take over – family crises come up, kids marry, people die, babies are born. One doesn’t dwell long on what is the right choice in these situations.

But there are also tracts of time not hijacked in this way. Such is the case for me at the moment. I am in a time of serenity. However, I sense that now as much as ever is the time to make right choices – to go beyond putting an item on a list and get to the actual doing of it.

Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mount with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness.

Oswald Chambers - My Utmost for His Highest

A good piece on choices at Wittingshire - Choices and the Devil Wears Prada.