Are you ready? The big day is almost here. I know folks who wait all year for this moment. There are only a few hours now to wait, in fact the pregame shows will be coming on later this afternoon. The Super Bowl is almost a national unifying event so many people watch it.
Have you made your choice yet? The choice for which team you believe will win the title, the game and be adorned with glistening rings. Let hear it for the Kansas City Chiefs. Or maybe that is not your favorite team, how about for the Philadelphia Eagles?
The super bowl is not just our favorite team choice it includes many more choices:
- Where should we watch the game? Will we be at home, invite friends over, watch by ourself?
- Have you thought about the game day snacks – What will you have? Morning news shows like Today have had various cooking experts on through this past week enticing viewers to plan ahead for their super bowl snacks.
- Do you have your favorite jerseys ready to wear?
- Choices, Choices! Choices!
Our lives are filled with choices. From the fun ones around the super bowl, to routine choices of what to wear, when to eat, where to eat, what to eat? And everything in between.
Sometimes choices are relatively easy to make – Will we wear our bathing suit outside when the temperature dips below freezing with the wind chill searing our face?
Other choices are a bit more difficult and may lead us to make our pros and cons list trying to discern what will be the best choice that we can make.
And then there are those choices when our heart really, really, really want to do something and yet logically, sensibly we know that doing it would be wrong or at least not in our best interest. You know what I mean – when that bag of potato chips is calling to us. Or just one more cookie, ice cream cake or another cool one to enjoy and unwind at the end of a long day.
Temptation abounds. Choices are always before us.
The Scripture
This day we hear of Moses calling the community of believers, Israel, to make a choice in his farewell address to the people. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20) He desperately wants the folks to choose life! But it is do deceptively easy for humans to choose the what looks easy instead of taking the more strenuous path which often leads to greater depths of life. Moses stated:
“I have set before you today life and prosperity,
death and adversity. If you obey the commandments
of the Lord your God that I
am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God,
walking in his ways,
and observing his commandments,
decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live”
After 40 years of wandering around the desert, Moses know the people. The folks have fallen into some easier routines for life. They have been tempted to take God for granted, to put their own needs and wants ahead of what may have been the will of God.
Moses said: Choose life, not just in the big circumstances – not murdering people, nor stealing from others. Make intentional choices in each encounter with others to love the Lord – to walk in God’s ways. Moses knew how very human each person of the community was! He also said:
“But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but
are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them,
I declare to you today that you shall perish”
It is so easy to get wrapped up in living life and not be as intentional in our choices as Moses is calling the believers to. In our humanity, sometimes we react rather than making an intentional response when someone crosses our path making us angry. By this I mean, we may react anger for anger. Exploded without burst of loud words, possibly even become physically violent. Sometimes when we want others to do things our way, we power up and over people causing the other to feel small and inconsequential. Or we insist on our way while not really listening to ideas of others
There are so many little ways that the human heart turns away from God. How can we make intentional choices for each action, word, attitude, manner of our daily living?
The Lord’s Prayer
As Jesus taught us to pray, giving us the 6th petition of the Lord’s Prayer where we hear: “Lead us not into temptation” or “Do not bring us into the time of trial” (Matthew 6:13)
As Martin Luther emphatically states God does not tempt anyone!!! So why do we pray this phrase? How does it assist us in making our choices to be more and more Christlike in our everyday living?
This petition requests and affirms a power form God that can carry us through even the most daunting of situations; times when we feel our weakest and don’t think we can make it through. God keeps us from temptation. This petition brings the light of Christ that cannot be extinguished by the deepest despair of war, random violence, fears, and anxieties. Why? So that our faith may stay strong with an unshakeable foundation even in the midst of humanities atrocities.
Today’s Prayer Practice
This week notice the many times you are presented with a choice. As you consider the choices before you this week, ponder if, when, and possibly how you may be tempted to take the easy way and be drawn away from God.
May all your choices be intentional responses to God’s greatest gift of love for you. And do not let anything tempt you away from your dearly Belovedness of God.
Enjoy praying.
