God Is Good!!!

I'm sitting here this morning so conscious that as we serve God He leads us along regardless of what is coming up ahead.  A member of our church family (only 42) died almost a week ago as the result of a semi-truck hitting his car head on.  He was dead on impact.  One minute he was on earth and the next he was with Jesus.  Here I am, 76 years on earth, and I can truly say that God has led me all the way and there was not one moment that I did now know He was with me.  When times were tough God reminded me that He had never let me down, ever, so why would He start now?  I have to believe that God was and is with Leroy every moment of his life and death.  But no matter how we live, we have little control over the final moment.

I lived my whole life through the prism of being fat.  How could I lose weight?  How could I keep it off? Why was I so bad, wrong and awful for being fat?  Yet as I come to the twilight years of my life I find that all the reasons for being thin I used most of my life (being thin to catch a man, being thin to be beautiful, being thin so as to be more attractive in business, etc.) no longer have any meaning.  Now it comes down to: being thin so my diabetes is under control; being thin so my back doesn't act up from the added weight; being thin so I can live a long quality life.

Sitting here thinking about how easily life can end I realize that in the final moments, I really have no control so maybe I don't really have any lasting control over my life or my health.  Sure I make daily choices, but is there a place where I can live so close in intimacy with God that I allow Him to make my choices?  Like: "Ok, God, here is today - please live it through me.  What do you want me to do? What do you want me to eat? How can I be useful to You?"  It is not as if many people in the world today and in the eons past did not live their lives this way.  Paul said, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Phil 1:21)  This means that only by living my life for Christ and through Christ do I truly live. Only by letting Jesus make my choices do I truly experience the full life.

The missionary couple down in Mexico that were murdered a week or so ago had the opportunity to leave Mexico and be safe but their flock could not leave.  So they stayed and chose to let Christ live through them no matter what happened.  Not that every day is a life or death matter but could we live each day as if it were?  To choose or not to choose, that is the question.  In the end we realize that we only can choose each day how we will live and that to live more fully, we can turn this choosing over to the Lord because only God knows the beginning and the end.