One Way Ticket

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   Here's a truth about me. Making choices is hard. I hate closing off options, and wondering if this is the right choice, even if I'm enjoying it. It's not easy for me to choose a path and follow it through, because I tend to get distracted or start thinking that maybe another option was the better one. But there is one choice I made in my life that I've never once questioned or wanted to take back, and that's the choice I made to become a Christian and follow Jesus. I knew it was something that was going to change my life, and it was a permanent ongoing change. Sanctification. Yet I know it's easy to want and take detours, especially for those my age. 

    We are surrounded by an ongoing chain of advertisements in the world, wanting to draw our attention and time and devotion away from God.

    It's easy to fall prey to these distractions, especially when they come wrapped in pretty packaging. Parties, having "fun". Attention from others. It's a carousal of rotating ideas that this will be fun, this will be fine. It's generally not. It can lead to pulling us away from our path of following Jesus, which should be a one way ticket. There shouldn't be any chances to turn around in our spiritual walk, yet we fall anyway, because we are only human. The question is the following, I suppose. How can we continue on a straight path when we live in a world full of mazes and detours? 

    That's something a lot of people have probably been struggling with lately. The pandemic has caused churches to close and relationships to be minimized, support systems that God has placed in our spiritual lives. And while they are not what sustain our walk of sanctification, their loss can be detrimental to our spiritual state. Whether it's struggling to keep up with our devotionals or something more serious, we have been stumbling in this time of life and sometimes it feels like we can't get back on track.

    In the end, our priorities will be what decide the development of our walk with God.

    This is what it's going to come down to. What are we putting first? Is it God and His will and His commandments? Or is it 'fun' and 'excitement'? We might try and excuse this to ourselves and say 'it's fine, it's just for now' but we can't neglect these changes in our lives. We need to bring them before God and focus on our one and one relationship with Him. Sadly, our spiritual path cannot rely on church or relationships with other Christians. If we don't work to grow closer to Him, to love Him more and to listen to Him more, we won't. And being stagnant in our spiritual life will simply lead to a backwards slide that is soon impossible to stop.

    There isn't really a sure fire way to stay on track. We need to be in the Word and in constant prayer, and we need to be wise about what we are surrounding ourselves with in this time. Are we giving ourselves opportunities to grow with God, or to slip further away from Him? What are the voices we are listening to? Who are we spending time with? All of these are questions that aren't necessarily easy to answer, yet they are the ones that will tell us the truth about our time and where we are headed.  Psalm 119:2 says "Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart." Are we giving God all of us and following Him without turning back? Or are we just allowing him to have "most" of us.

Thank you for reading! Leave your thoughts in the comments and share this if you enjoyed  it! 

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