Birthday Choices

Today is a very special day!  On this day, we will probably eat chicken mini's for breakfast.  We will most likely have grilled cheese for lunch, and we will definitely have grilled salmon and strawberry cake for dessert this evening!  But not just any strawberry cake....birthday cake!  Our little girl turns 9 today, and we are going to celebrate all day long.  We probably won't stop there...we'll probably keep right on celebrating through the weekend!

A birthday is quite a special thing for a child.  I remember my own birthdays...I waited for them all year long.  I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to spoil any of the possible surprises that would come.  My family didn't throw parties, but we did celebrate with special birthday meals, cake and a really nice gift.  I was always so very thrilled to be able to choose the menu for dinner, and almost always, I chose roast beef with potates and carrots.  Believe it or not, on a few occasions, I chose fried liver and onions with mashed potatoes.  One of my sisters chose red beans and rice with sausage a few times.  And when we got older and went to restaurants, I chose a catfish house (that also served frog legs on the buffet) a couple of times.  To this day, the tradition remains.  We can chose what we want to eat if we are anywhere near our parents' house!  And now that I'm older, I usually want my mother to cook venison hash - I only get it about once a year since Wayne doesn't hunt, and we don't have a freezer filled with venison. In this same fashion, Miss Maggie has chosen her special celebratory meals today.  Like I said, chicken mini's, grilled cheese, salmon and cake.  With so many choices out there, this is what has been selected. 

We are surrounded every day by choices.  I choose the clothes that I wear.  I choose the things we will do for the day.  (I choose which privileges to revoke for homework undone....ha!) I choose the food that will be served for supper.  But when it comes down to what's really important in our lives, there is only one choice that will determine our eternal future.  Will you accept Jesus as your Savior and your Lord?  This is all that really matters.  Everything else is just "fluff and stuff"...Jesus is all that counts.

A friend of ours was telling us about the prayerful consideration on the purchase of a house.  He said he was agonizing over whether or not to move.  The Lord told him, "I don't care nearly as much about where you live as how you live."  That's it, isn't it?  God Himself isn't as bogged down in our details as we are.  We think that the world will come to an end if we don't get things right.  Not so.  God is more concerned with what is eternal.  He knows that all of this will fade away.

One of the verses that has been in the center of our home since Wayne and I were married is in the form of a beautiful paint and pencil original piece.  A friend of ours from California was in set design in the film industry.  He had lost his way in his life and found himself caught in an ungodly lifestyle.  He came to Jesus through Jack Hayford's ministry at Church on the Way and gave his heart and his art to God completely.  The picture that he gave us for our wedding was his life's story.  It is a field with an old home - the home in which he grew up.  The house represents the pain and old memories of his life, but the field around it represents the new life and the harvest that surrounds us all.  The sun is setting in a gloriously colorful sky, and the verse below it sums up the choice that our friend came to understand as the most important part of his life.  "Choose you this day whom you will serve.  As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15 Our friend made this choice very late in his life.  In fact, in his last few days, we brought him food, cooked for him a bit, helped him clean his house, but he ultimately died of complications with HIV.   That isn't the part that God counts, though.  The part that has eternal benefit is the moment where he chose to serve a risen Savior!  Our friend's earthly body bore the remaining bit of sinful decay, but his spirit bears the eternal righteousness that is ours when all is covered by the blood of a pure and spotless sacrifice, given for our cause.

It doesn't matter who you are.  It doesn't matter what you've done.  It doesn't matter how unworthy you feel.  All that matters is that Jesus died for you.  Jesus took all of our sins to the cross with Him.  He paid the price for us to live in freedom.  It's as if we were all on an auction block of slavery.  We were bound in ungodly service to sin and the world.  But Jesus said, "I'll pay."  His precious blood was all that was necessary to cover the terrible cost of the sins of this guilty world.  Your choice is all that you have to pay to find freedom.  The price was already given, just say yes. 

Once that weighty choice has been made, all else is smooth sailing!  Then life is filled with the simple and wonderful choices of...what will I have for my birthday dinner?

Happy birthday, Miss Maggie!  We are so glad that you were born!  And we are so thrilled that you have made the choice to let God live in your heart!  Have a wonderful birthday!