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A Choice Presented in a Moment | The Path That Leads to God

As a full-time employee at a school, I received a laptop. I want to respect school property and protect the laptop from unnecessary damage so I ordered a sleeve for it to sleep in while I carry it to and fro in my teacher tote. Jarrod has Amazon Prime so I ordered it on his account for it to be delivered the Saturday before school starts. Saturday, I went to the mailbox and it wasn’t there. Jarrod says, “ohh yeah! I forgot…my credit card expired and you have to reorder it.” I was so disappointed! I thought I timed the delivery perfectly and I couldn’t wait to check out my new purple laptop sleeve!

At this point, I was presented with two options in my mind and emotions:
1.       Get mad and blame a bunch of people for my misfortune, or
2.       Not be so dramatic because now it arrives on Monday and that’s not very far away (first world probs).

I chose the first option. The thing is, in my mind, I knew there were two options! Both were waiting at an equal level to be chosen and I chose to get mad. I was disappointed, upset with Jarrod, upset with myself and upset with Amazon. The whole way down this road I could still hear the other option - “don’t be silly…stop overreacting…it’s just a laptop sleeve…you’ll have it by the second day of school…” - but I chose to tamp down the voice of reason (God) and go with my anger and blame. It wasn’t until the blame-game turned into accusing Jarrod of things that he would not do (I won’t even give voice to these thoughts) that I realized the dark path of lies, blame and condemnation I had chosen was becoming destructive. I became uncomfortable with where my thoughts were going and stopped immediately. I turned around and headed for the original path I should have chosen and asked God to align my emotions to His desire for me.

I don’t want anger or disappointment to be the driver of my emotions! When anger and disappointment drive our emotions, our path leads to resentment, blame, accusations and sometimes abuse. When God drives our emotions, He leads us with reason, love, peace, joy and understanding. He puts things in perspective for us that anger hinders us from seeing. Anger clouds our judgment and causes us to stumble. God clears the fog and causes us to riseup with wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31).

Ultimately, we all have a choice. It happens in a split second, maybe less, but the choice is ours. Even if you choose the lesser path, like I did, you can turn around in another split second and get on God’s path. It’s in a moment, it’s happens in the span of a breath or heartbeat, but the effect can last much longer. Anger can burn for days, months or years, but in a matter of seconds, we can turn our faces towards God and watch the fire of anger be snuffed out like it was never there. We can go on with our lives without the black soot leftover from the fire. He cleans the mess and wipes us clean with love. In a moment, He can right our paths and take us to place we never knew existed.

God offers this choice to all His children. He’s waiting for you with open arms, hoping you’ll choose him in every moment. It’s never too late to turn towards Him and receive what He has for you. Take it; it’s free because the debt has been paid
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