Life is like a game of checkers…full of choices

Wednesday Word

I watched as he sat and thought, and thought, and thought before making his next move…
 
Thanks for joining us for Wednesday’s Word with Kim-Evinda and Trench Classes United. We are confident that you will receive something for your own journey with God from this Wednesday’s Word and that you will use it as a weapon of warfare in the battles of life.
 
I don’t think I had ever seen him think so intensely, and yet it was beautiful at the same time because he wasn’t one to play board games, card games, any game, really, and he had never played Checkers, ever in his life. I hadn’t played since I was a young girl. I was both encouraged and frustrated at the same time: encouraged as I love this “connection” I have with this little guy, despite not living with him anymore. The frustration was real, however, fun frustration, if there is such a thing, but this now 12-year-old was beating me 😊 😊 😊 As we exchanged moves – he always has to remind me of the rules -- I got to thinking [uh-oh, there I go again, thinking 😊 😊 ] isn’t life like a game of checkers?
 
We all are presented with the gift of choice, choosing small and big things, and many choices have the right/wrong component to them and often affect those in our inner circle.
 
When situations and circumstances arise as a result of someone else’s choice(s), don’t you just wish He would have made them to choose differently?
 
Here’s what I have come to know (in Hebrew, the word know translates to yada which means to know with our inner being, in other words as a result of experience) that God doesn’t make things happen to cause us pain; but we can trust Him to work it all out for our good and His glory.
How do I know? Well, to make a really long story short, in my current season, I finally got brave enough to ask Him, “Why, Lord? Why did you allow this? Why couldn’t you stop him from choosing her?”
 
I heard His response very, very clearly: “I wept every time he went to her. He is not my puppet, but my child and there will be a reward for your own obedience.”
 
God loves us enough to allow us to choose…but we don’t have to choose as if we are lost, wondering and wandering with no one to advise us. Jeremiah 29:12 says that He will listen to us when we call upon Him and when we seek Him with our whole heart, we will find Him…and the answer to each and every choice we have to or get to make.
 
Perhaps we should begin our days with choosing to invite Him into them. Incidentally, my now 12-year-old grandson did wind up beating me, not just once, either 😊
 
Thoughtfully,
Kim-Evinda