The Choices we make

                    Then the Lord said to Cain, "why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?..."

              Genesis 4:6

                    Killing, sickness, pain, confusion, anger, brokenness. Why does this all have to be apart of this world? If God is with us, why does he allow this all to continue to happen?!

                                                    Be my Lord

                " If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

                                                                                                                Genesis 4:7

                  Sin; its a horrible thing. It's a black, thick, inky sickness that latches onto your soul and fastens tight. We are so quick to blame God for things that go wrong in our lives or when were having a bad day. Could some of the bad things in our lives be prevented? Do we bring pain, grief and sadness onto ourselves?

                  Take Adam and Eve for example. They lived in a perfect world. God had one instruction for them. Not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Other then that life was great! Then that sly serpent came in and questioned Eve of what she believed.  She did not turn to Adam or God for help. She thought about what Satan said (which was a big mistake!).  And that brought us here. Sin is more deadly then we realize. A lot of the bad things that happen is from the choices that people made through sin. And the other part is from Satan. Yes God is  here in the world. He could end all this suffering here and now. But he had other plans. One of them was to let us have our free will. 

                God could have taken our free will after the first major mistake. But he didn't. He let us be able to make the choice of sin/Satan or God.  Now read carefully this excerpt from Randy Alcorn's The Purity Principle.

               Eric stormed into my office and flopped into a chair. "I'm  really mad at God."

               Having grown up in a strong church family, he'd met and married a Christian girl. Now he was a picture of misery.

               "Okay...so why are you mad at God?"

                "Because," he said, "last week I committed adultery." 

                  Long pause. Finally I said, "I can see why God would be mad at you. But why are You mad at God?

                 Eric explained that for several months he'd felt a strong, mutual attraction with a woman at the office. He'd prayed earnestly that God would keep him from immorality. 

                "Did you ask your wife to pray for you?" I said "Did you stay away from this woman?"

                "Well...no. We went out for lunch almost every day."

                  Slowly I started pushing a big book across my desk. Eric watched uncomprehending, as the book inched closer and closer to the edge. I prayed aloud, " O Lord, please keep this book from falling!" 

                  I kept pushing and praying. God didn't suspend the law of gravity. The book went right over the edge, smacking the floor.

                   "I'm mad at God," I said to Eric. "I asked Him to keep my book from falling...but He let me down!

                   Eric's life went down hill because of the choices he made. He could have prayed with his wife or went to God and truly asked God for help and actually took the time to listen and stay away from the woman.

                 Take cheer. Don't lose hope. What was in God's plan was to send his son down to sacrifice himself to save the world from sin and eternal death. Jesus is our salvation! We don't need to chose it and we don't have too. Now there will be times when our flesh; our old self will desire your old ways and there are times when you will fall. If you turn to God and repent your sins God will be faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and purify you from all unrighteousness! ( 1 John 1 :9)  

            And one day God will restore this world and us to wholeness. This world will be perfect again. In God's perfect timing.