Choice
A friend relayed this story to me last night. He attended college with a girl and was good friends with her. She was raised in a Christian home and attended church regularly. As he said, "She knew the Truth - she knew right from wrong." She began to date a muslin boy from Egypt. My friend had a long talk with her and warned her against dating him because he feared she would be pulled away from her faith. The boy treated her well but she was warned that eventually his true self and true religion would emerge.

She ended up dating him more seriously and marrying him. A few years later, his true self emerged and the rules of Islam were forced upon her. In rebellion she got hooked up with a group following witchcraft and lesbianism. She hit rock bottom. Her world came apart.

In a moment of desperation, she turned back to God and prayed. In her prayers she anguished over how her life had turned out and she shook her fist at God and said, "How could you have let all this happen to me? Why didn't you warn me?"

With that she had a sudden flashback to her college days. She hadn't thought about my friend in years but suddenly he was there again. She remembered their entire conversation, remembered what he was wearing and remembered his warnings about choosing to turn away from God.

God said to her - "You see, I tried to warn you but you chose to ignore my warnings". Now God didn't say, "I told you so..." rather, He lovingly showed her His mercy in that conversation. She came back to God and restored her faith in Him.

It is so easy for us to blame God for our problems. We choose to ignore Him. We choose to do things our own way and when we make a wreck of our lives, we turn back to God and say "Why did you let this happen?"

Our nation has turned its back on God. We've removed Him from our schools. We don't allow prayer before football games. We've removed His values from our entertainment and replaced it with TV shows promoting alternative lifestyles, affairs, drug use, teenage sex, violence and greed. As we have seen, this opening of Pandora's box hasn't made us any safer or more complete. Alcoholism, drug use, addition to pornography, teenage sex and street violence are at all time highs and we wonder why God would let such bad things happen.

God didn't let these terrible things happen - they are consequences our decision to turn our backs on Him. God didn't "let" Adam and Eve get cast out of the Garden - they chose to disobey His command and then they were exposed to their own nakedness, their own sin.

There is still time for our nation. There is time to turn back to God. There is time to repent of our selfish ways. While we cannot individually change the course of this nation's path, we can change the path of our individual homes and lives. We can turn back to God. We can stop living for self and live for Him.

I love the words from this song...
Give me one pure and holy passion, give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You.

The ambition of our lives should be to know and follow hard after Him. It isn't to become CEO or to become rich or famous -- the ambition of our lives should be Him.

Soar!