Just One Choice

I mentioned yesterday that I'm at a camp with 1000 different guys. Being here, I've witnessed firsthand just how different we all are. Of course there are external factors like skin color, clothing style, and language, but even more striking is the many different life circumstances we find ourselves in.

One of my favorite things about The Salvation Army is the fact that everyone is welcome. At any given time, this inexperienced Lieutenant was mingling with Colonels and Commissioners. Recovering drug and alcohol addicts have been sitting among long-term saints of the church. Anyone who walked in on our meetings wouldn't even have been able to tell who was who, because for this weekend, we are of one accord.

A friend of mine once warned me of judging anyone, whether they were in prison, rehab, or other situation of that kind. He explained with great clarity that the difference between me and them is just one choice.

I've made many less-than-perfect choices in this life, so I really know that I have nothing that makes me any better or worse than anyone else. The only hope that any of us have to rise above those choices is surrender - a topic that Commissioner Israel Gaither has pronounced boldly this whole weekend. General William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army, once said, "The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender." In other words, our greatness only comes through humility and total yielding to God.

We've all made choices that I'm sure we'd want to walk away from. Let's put that thought into action and give God all of our lives so that we can truly live in the greatness He has called us to.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Advice Column

There has always been a part of me that wanted to be the author of a newspaper advice column. I heard about them as a kid, and as kids often do, I thought, yeah, I could do that. I didn't realize at the time that someone actually had to want my advice before I could give it, let alone publish it! Even now, I have a desire to give whatever advice I can to those who want it. However, I've often taken the route of offering advice and solutions when they weren't even requested. I can't help but to try to fix things sometimes, especially when, to me, the solution seems so glaringly obvious! But counseling classes, seven years of marriage, and personal experiences otherwise have all taught me that sometimes (OK, most of the time), people just want someone to listen. In today's society, everybody has an opinion on just about everything, and it's not uncommon for someone to give you their opinion, solution, or "expertise," whether or not what they're t
Read more

Text the Lemons

It's interesting how much of a difference there can be between what we hear and what is actually said. My kids, like several million others, thoroughly enjoy the movie "Frozen." When they were already trying to sing the songs after just seeing it once at the theater, it seemed like a good idea for me to buy the soundtrack. They both rarely ever want to listen to anything else, and they have essentially memorized all the lyrics to the singing songs. Right before everyone's favorite Elsa song, my daughter asks me, "Daddy, do you want to hear me sing the next song?" "Of course I do!" I reply. She doesn't need any more encouragement and begins to belt out "Let It Go" as if she were Adele Dazeem herself. I listen in fascination as my four-year-old matches pitches and words perfectly, but then, in the second verse, she changes the words. One line in the song says, "To test the limits and break through!" My daughter, without lackin
Read more

Five For Five

I don't want to write today. It's not that I can't - there are certainly plenty of things that transpired over this past weekend that are blog-worthy, but honestly, my heart can't handle writing a full post about some of them. That being said, I'll continue day five of my challenge with five short thoughts that reflect this past weekend for me. Enjoy. 1. Life and loved ones need to be cherished while we have the capacity to do so. We really never know when the end will come, and sadly, death is no respecter of youth or circumstances. Stop taking life, friends, and family for granted. Love them while you have them. 2. Sometimes a long weekend is all you need for a proper getaway, especially if you have good friends who will bring you into their home and stay up past midnight just to talk for hours and let you unload everything. I am truly blessed to have spent this past weekend with a beautiful family including a couple friends who have really been pillars for my
Read more