Saturday, December 14, 2013

"His Choices"






























     Is hindsight really 20-20, as the saying goes?  Can we look back on the past with accurate understanding of better paths we could have taken than the ones actually traveled?

     Sometimes we can, especially concerning those occasions in the past when we failed to act in accordance with God's will.  Moreover, we can certainly see other forms of alternative routes that would have been better than the ones we chose.  However, some of our regrets actually proceed from faulty awareness and understanding of details wherein our Heavenly Father worked in our lives to accomplish things that could not have happened along more seemingly pleasant paths.  Indeed, we might not know, love, and trust Him without some of our forays into venues of challenge, difficulty, loss, and pain.

    "A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps" (Proverbs 16:9).

    Some of our devisings concern the past.  We think we can look back with proper discernment of better choices that could have been made.  Again, this is sometimes true.  But not always.  Some previous decisions we might wish we could change were actually the Lord's directing us to place on which our feet presently stand.  We wouldn't know Him as we do apart from His guidance into certain valleys, the effects of which linger until the present hour.  His choices rather than our own took us there, and brought us here.

    Our Lord would not have our hearts to be dominated by regret.  He forgives and cleanses as we acknowledge our sins in honest repentance and faith.  We cannot change wayward steps of yesterday, but rather learn from them in order to take the faithful steps of today.  Furthermore, some of the decisions we regret actually involve our failure or inability to recognize the guiding hand of God as He directed our steps to places where it may seem they shouldn't have gone.  Yes, sometimes hindsight is 20-20, or even better.  But sometimes our vision is cloudy concerning the past.  We therefore do well to trust our Heavenly Father concerning the yesterdays we cannot change, including many that He wouldn't change either.

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord."
(Psalm 37:23)

Weekly Memory Verse
     Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor."
(Ephesians 5:1)


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