choices on Surrender

How do you define what it means to “make a sacrifice?” We say we sacrifice for our family, or sacrifice for our careers. We speak of Jesus sacrificing himself so that we can experience eternal life. A...

At crucial moments of choice, most of the business of choosing is already over.

The choice is before us: life or death. Let us choose life so that we may live. To Jesus we cry: Cleanse us, oh Lord! By the mercy of Christ we are made clean. This is the hope that we proclai...

Gracious God, your Son Jesus came not be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. He is our Good Shepherd, whose leadership is less about the love of power, and more about the ...

God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are always and forever for us: We can’t run away from Your presence; nor out-sin Your amazing grace and forgiveness. We can’t exhaust Your unconditional love nor ...

During World War II, Winston Churchill was forced to make a painful choice. The British secret service had broken the Nazi code and informed Churchill that the Germans were going to bomb Coventry. He ...

“It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Gracious God, sometimes I think that I can figure out all the consequences of my decisions. I can become overly impressed with what I perceive to be my strategic vision and analysis. Forgive me for my...

The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.

Carl Jung, one of the early pioneers of modern psychology, wrote this from his years of experience as a therapist: The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of ...

One of the saddest, most depressing movies I’ve ever seen would have to be Sophie’s Choice. I was a kid when it came out, so I didn’t see it until much later, after I was grown. By that time, I had he...

The things we say yes to and the things we say no to determine the terrain of our future. My convoluted journey is posted with invitations, and my RSVPs account for the twists and turns. Sometimes, ha...

Almighty and loving God, all of us here today are hurting. Some of us are hurting as the result of circumstances beyond our control. Some of us are hurting because of our own choices. Some of us are f...

Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we...

Pastor: Gracious Father, You have chosen us for a purpose – that we might bear lasting fruit for Your Kingdom. You call us to walk humbly before You and to share in the struggle with the least of thes...

One of the saddest, most depressing movies I’ve ever seen would have to be Sophie’s Choice. I was a kid when it came out, so I didn’t see it until much later, after I was grown. By that time, I had he...

Change will happen whether you like it or not. Positive change, however, requires choice. You can choose to accept natural change or you can choose to fight it. . . . The power to choose is yours. The...

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

O God, who guides the decisions of the meek, and whose light shines in darkness for the godly: Give us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit...

Angela Merkel breaks almost every stereotype we have about world leaders. Her appearances and actions are plain and modest.  She's humble. She couldn't care less about showmanship or fancy dis...

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burn...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we too often center our lives around ourselves and our immediate needs, and that this blinds us from being aware of the needs of our neighbors. Help us to know our tru...

What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

Invitations are powerful. Like tides, they ebb and flow, shaping the contours of our existence. Some invitations we desperately want but never get—“Will you marry me?” or “Would you consider a promoti...

Life just gives you time and space—it’s up to you to fill it.

“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?" "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it...

The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present. . . . We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance—and choo...

Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than w...

In The Sickness unto Death , Kierkegaard describes a “moment” familiar to all of us. It is the “little tiny transition from having understood to doing.” Here’s what he says about it: …if a person d...