SEPTEMBER 24, 2016

“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.” 
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

ISAIAH 1-3

22Stop trusting in mere humans,

who have but a breath in their nostrils.

Why hold them in esteem? (2:23)

GALATIANS 2

 20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”^e

JOURNAL 

These verses affirm that we are never to be enslaved in our hearts and minds to other humans. There are times and still today there are places that people's bodies are the possessions of others. However the mind and the spirit can never be unless we allow it. It is the same with anything that is not God.

My mind and heart are free to choose...yet it is through choosing God that I find joy and peace no matter my physical circumstances. It is in this choosing that I find that there is strength and power in being able to surrender to God in my mind and heart.  For God's ways are far greater than man's and his ways are good and true and are anchored in love. Why therefore would I ever choose to surrender to man rather than God?

It is because this is how we learn and this is how we grow up. There are patterns that we accept and adopt that are rooted in pleasing man rather than God. These patterns and these habits are what I am struggling to break. To do so feels wrong and self-destructive however this is the crux of the faith and the crossroads of my own journey...who and what do I follow and choose??

13“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

MATTHEW 7:13-14