Step 3: We made a decision to turn our life and will over to the care of God.

March 1

Scripture reading for today: Ephesians 1

We made a decision. All of us can relate to making a decision. Have you ever been frustrated with a decision you ’ ve made? I am always making decisions – but sometimes my follow through makes me question whether I really “ decided ” something or just “ considered ” it. How many diet decisions have you made, and then recanted? You get the idea, don ’ t you? There are decisions and then there are DECISIONS. Step three is a tricky kind of decision – it involves process.

I don ’ t know a verb tense that appropriately captures the on-going nature of this decision. Once I was baptizing a man who chose to reveal his “ decision ” publicly through baptism. This was a baptism by immersion - the way Jesus was baptized. First, he leaned back into the water. Once submerged, I helped lift him back out of the water and up he arose! Pushing hair and water out of his face and shaking off the water like a shaggy dog, he peered at me and said, “ Wow! I feel different. This was a good decision. I just know that I ’ m never going to relapse again. ” I felt a little twinge of concern. This is not magic; this is process. (He did relapse again, but only once. It was his last relapse; I ’ m quite sure he ’ ll not be relapsing in heaven.)

On July 15 th, 1978 I married my husband. The entire ceremony lasted no longer than a good baptism. But the decision I made on that day is remade daily. Daily I choose to humble myself to the marriage. That ceremonial expression of our decision is not what keeps my husband and I married. We ’ re married because we make a decision daily to be committed to each other. The initial decision is vital. But it is also continual. (That ’ s process.) And it ’ s tricky. And some days we live out our decision with more vim, vigor and vitality then other days. Some days we question our decision. (Like the time I wrecked the car we were planning to trade in that night for a newer, cooler model. Or the time my husband complained because our son, residing actively in my womb, was annoying him by kicking him in the back while he slept – think about that, and you ’ ll get the point. Or the time I accidentally pushed my husband down the stairs while we were moving a couch. Then there was the time HE managed to lodge our sleep sofa in our hallway wall. Oh yes, who could forget the time when I was nine months pregnant and had to help get the car unclogged from a snow embankment?)

It ’ s times like these when a well made decision comes in handy. The matter is decided. And although it may be inconvenient, annoying, mysterious or even questionable as to whether it was a good decision or bad – a decision made is one that you commit to – regardless of how you feel about said decision at any given moment.

Thought for today: Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. (Ephesians 4:14 NIV)

Thought for tomorrow: But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt; because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. (James 1:6 NIV) Alternative translation (James 1:6 NLT) – But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.

Don ’ t you want the tossing about to stop? Sometimes the storm is most brutal right before the decision is made. There are many choices I don ’ t have to entertain every day simply because I decided to be married to my beloved. A faith decision can be like that too. Once you decide, a calm certainty can overtake our fretting. Make a decision; accept God ’ s help!

March 1
Teresa McBean

Previous devotionals

Other links: www.crosswalk.com &  NACR Online