Today I choose to start over again.

I once heard it said that God never allows us to fail a test. Instead, He just keeps giving that test to us over and over again until we pass.  I don't know why I have a hard time believing this when it is the truth in my very own classroom. I am a first grade teacher and quite honestly, don't find it very appealing to put an "F" in the gradebook. I choose to reteach and retest as much as I possibly can because I want my students to learn the concepts.  However, when it comes to myself, I don't mind visualizing that big letter "F" in one area of my life. I have a hard time not giving myself that scarlet letter whenever I look in the mirror and have often wondered how God has never given up on me.  I have spent my entire life trying to lose weight. Every fad diet, New Year's resolution, delicious birthday cake candle and motivational book or conversation, has always been a glimmer of hope to my new beginning that soon fades as I choose to fall into my old unhealthy patterns. And to be honest, I'm about as far away from achieving these healthy goals as I've ever been so I am not another inspirational blogger sharing her personal testimony on what she did to lose weight.  I am one woman who is far from perfect but who has the "want to" to try again. This time, I just want to choose life.

One summer in India, God gave me a heart for the book of Deuteronomy. This is the book that many people never even make it to after committing to reading the bible in a year and getting lost in Leviticus or Numbers. I personally feel that if you can press on, this book is the icing on the cake to a beautiful story of redemption and grace, shimmering with precious words full of hope and encouragement. God's messed up, imperfect but beloved people were forced to stay in the wilderness for 40 years and were still awaiting their freedom in the promised land God was providing for them. Moses had been the man God used to deliver his children out of slavery in Egypt and lead them on the path to a land of liberty. Along the way, the choices these people made kept them in the wilderness longer than God ever intended and there ended up being a sort of changing of the guards. Joshua enters the scene and God allows him to continue the work Moses began. In the following verses, we read the incredible charge that Joshua gives to God's people who are about to finally walk into their long-awaited freedom in Canaan.

The Offer of Life or Death

"Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”  Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.  See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to Him, and to keep His commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,  I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life, and He will give you many years in the land He swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Amen. Amen and Amen. Praise God for such awe-inspiring words! It is my prayer that these very words will inspire myself and any others along for the journey to now choose life. Today. And tomorrow. And to know that in the very midst of our failures, God is loving us more fully than we can ever love ourselves. He is trying so desperately to diminish the labels which we have placed upon ourselves and destroy the bad roots so that He can plant deep, healthy roots which will produce good fruit. It is very important to know this truth: if nothing changes in a month, God still loves me. If this blog does nothing but keep me up a few extra hours at night and I walk away still struggling with my weight, He will simply find another way to try to teach me to overcome this obstacle. But He will still love me. And He still loves you. This one Truth, this truth alone we can cling to:

^"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 8:38-39

Thank you Father, for your amazing love and for that fact that the only reason I choose life today is because you chose me first. I am so grateful that You draw me with your loving kindness and mercy. I am so confident in your love and desire so greatly to show you the adoration you deserve as my King and Savior. Oh Giver of Life, help me to seek You in all I do. Amen.

Now Choose Life.