Choice

Well, this is odd.

Dear readers, I've got about three or four potential posts sitting on the backburner, but haven't finished any of them. And this afternoon, a complete inspiration popped into my head. So I'm going to tell you about one of the weird things I believe in.

I'll create a tangent first by telling you how the idea arrived.

Today had been kinda busy but not - it wasn't as though I'd been physically exerted. Been a while since my brain's tried juggling china cups and chainsaws though.
I did however manage to get sunburnt. Driver's Arm is forseeable this season, I can safely say.

So, this arvo when I got home, I pulled out a picture I'm working on for Paint/Draw. It's a panoramic landscape sunset thingie, done up in oilstick and turpentine. Usually I work with headphones in, so in they went and away the work went.

The closest-to-complete bit.

This continued until I had a song pop up on the list - called 'Falling Slowly' (by the Frames)

Take this sinking boat and point it home - we've still got time.
Raise your hopeful voice - you have a choice - you've made it now.

For some reason the word 'choice' stuck out. Not as a Kiwi buzzword, but in terms of the idea itself.
About two or three music tracks later I heard 'The Unwinding Cable Car' (by Anberlin)

Emotive unstable, you're like an unwinding cable car.
Listening for voices, but it's the choices that make us who we are.

Taking it as more than coincidence, I proceeded to drop my iPod onto the slightly turpentine-y surface of my work and began to think about making the concept into a blog post.

Choice has always been a big thing for me.
Well, maybe not always, but it certainly became more important after year 11 English where we looked at Determination versus Determinism. And there are also the countless times I've tuned in to sermons concerning Predestination.
Do we get to choose where we go or not?

As far as that goes, I at least think I know what I'm talking about.
It goes something like, It'll only matter if you let it matter.
Uhhh....

What I mean to say is that, we don't know what will happen in the future. So, if things are fated, then that means I was destined to eat porridge this morning. If I get to pick what happens, then that means that I decided against having oatsghurt this morning because I didn't want to eat all of the yoghurt.
Either way, I had porridge.

Still with me?

So, it's like, since I can't see the future, I should still try choosing. If the choice is fated, then that's okay, because I trust the Guy who is writing my fate. It's better than sitting in the kitchen all morning, trying to figure out if I can beat fate by eating tandoori chicken for breakfast (which we don't have, by the way), because then nothing would get done.

At this point, I'd embed a quote from a movie, but finding the exact one is...rather difficult.

There's a part later in the movie where another character (a young boy) tells it to someone else (a fifty-foot tall iron giant) and that's actually the one I wanted.
It's a kids movie, but it's also totally worth watching. It's called The Iron Giant. Go rent it and watch it.

So, as much as I'm choosing, I'm also trusting the one who knows my choices before I do, and trying to choose things that will in turn show what I believe in.

Am I being cryptic?
I'm a Christian. Just sticking the fact out there. Plain and simple. And I believe that God has an awesome plan in store for life.

I guess that having a life directed by this changes things a little.

I get motivated to choose. To decide what I want to be and what I want to do. Where to go.

All the while knowing that if I let God direct my choices, things will work out so much better. But that's never encouraged me to sit still. Because then nothing will change.

So I choose to glorify God. I choose to follow him. I choose to love him.

I choose to love others too.
At this point in time, I think it's safe to say (or incredibly bigheaded) that choosing to love is better than basing it on some fleeting emotion. We've gone and attached pink hearts and chocolate to something that is better coloured blood red - love isn't just sunsets, music or a hand to hold.

" You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Romans 5:6-8

Anyone who reckons it is easy to love the people who are willfully causing you mortal harm, speak now. 

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."
John 15:13

As much as I liked the corny side of love when I had it, this seems like a far greater purpose and calling. Something that would be hard to do, but so much more worth it if you could.

So a little bit at a time, I try to choose to love. It means having to hold on even when it hurts, but I think it means a lot more than the sugary, watered down idea that the media has fed us for so long.

Remember who you are.
Remember what this is. Find it, take hold of it in a deathgrip that refuses to release its hold.

This is now. This is who I choose to be. This is what I've got, and this is what I'm going to do with it.

And I think that just maybe, if I choose to do things that put God first, then everything else will fall into place.