Oh, That You Would Choose Life!

Oh, That You Would Choose Life!

Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, that you and your descendants might live! Choose to love the LORD your God and to obey him and commit yourself to him, for he is your life. –Deuteronomy 30:19-20

When she was only twelve, my friend Peggy was walking along the road with her four-year-old sister, who was struck by a car and killed instantly. Life as she knew it ended for Peggy that day too. Her mother was so devastated by the loss, Peggy told me, her mother “took to the bed, and she rarely got up again.” When her mother died decades later, there was a huge indentation in her mattress left by years of refusing to live in the face of death.

It’s not that I am without sympathy. I understand the pull and pleasure of drawing up the covers in an endeavor to sleep away the pain that comes with loss. I understand the numbing effects of refusing to engage or to feel when feeling brings pain. But I also know that refusing to choose life means choosing to die—perhaps not physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

What was it that Moses told the people of Israel is the same as choosing death? “If your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods” (Deuteronomy 30:17). Has your heart turned away from God because it is wounded and you believe he is to blame? Have you refused to listen to his promise to be your refuge and strength in times of trouble? Have you chosen to serve and worship the god-of-your-own-making who would never use hardship to refine you, or the idol-of-an-idyllic-life who owes you the comforts of privilege and power?

Oh, that you might choose life, refusing to be enveloped by and eventually destroyed by heart-crushing sorrow and soul-stealing disappointment! To choose life is to turn toward God with all your heart and soul, to open yourself to new joys as well as additional sorrows. It is to choose to live fully for God in recognition that there is no real life apart from him and that anything less is merely existing.

Life Giver, today I choose life! I choose to love you and obey you no matter what disappointments may come from living in this world. I want to occupy the land of blessing you have provided for me, so I turn wholeheartedly to you.

DIGGING DEEPER