Choices


Not counting the one brainstorming session Miranda Cain and I had this week, work on CCS lesson plans has ground to a halt.

I made a choice.

I had other things that were more pressing at the moment - Vacation Bible School, Tucker's chicken pox, assembling school supplies, packing a suitcase full of toys for the Haitian children our missions team will encounter next week, planning a party...

It's not that I don't think the CCS is important. I do. It's just that there were other, more pressing concerns.

A choice presented itself, and I made it.

The devotion I read this morning was all about choices and how some are what the author referred to as "choice points" - for more visit proverbs31.org - and how those often determine our ability to make a stand for Jesus or encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ among other things.

I wonder if Dan Cathy realized he was making a choice point? I wonder if he regrets his decision?

I hope not.

First and foremost, I need you to understand that I agree with his position on marriage - I believe in the Biblical definition of marriage and I hate divorce. Now before you start calling me a bigot and a hypocrite, let me clarify. I have friends and relatives who are gay. I love them with all my heart. I just don't agree with that lifestyle choice. I also have friends and relatives who are drug users, gossips, perpetually gloomy and downright mean. I love them, too. I just don't agree with that lifestyle choice.

Second, I have been divorced. I believe that was a sin for which I have been forgiven. I have seen, up close and personal, the damage that follows the death of a marriage and, even when it is necessary to provide safety to one or more parties, it's an ugly and horrible thing.

That said, I applaud Mr. Cathy for his statement. He said what he believes.

I'm a little concerned about free speech in our country. Our founding fathers had this crazy notion that they would create a country where everyone was free to voice their opinions about religion and the government and, well, pretty much everything. They had just left a place where you could be arrested and tortured if not killed for opposing the monarchy's views. And while I know the Word teaches us that the world will hate us if we stand with Jesus, it still wigs me out just a little that in a country where free speech is one of our basic tenets, there has been such an  uproar over one man stating his opinion (and spare me the donating to "hate group" speech because that's another whole rant - I don't hate you because I disagree with you and promote what I do believe to be truth. Does that make all the groups that are attacking him for his position hate groups, too? Because they apparently hate him and what he stands for?).

But I digress.

School starts in less than two weeks. I'm pretty sure that on the very first day, I will be faced with a choice point (assuming that it doesn't happen before the first day which I find unlikely).

In the face of things that make me unhappy, will I CHOOSE to let my light shine or will I give in to the temptation to whine and complain and be generally negative?

I'm praying for strength to choose rightly and for courage in the face of opposition.