No More "Eenie Meenie Miney Mo"

Decisions, decisions...

My decision-making abilities have not always been the most admirable. Actually, as a child, they pretty much didn't exist. Any time I was faced with a choice, I was pretty good at pulling out "Eenie Meenie Miney Mo" or one of my personal favorites, "Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum in a Dish," which literally takes you like five hours to choose which movie to watch or which shirt to wear.

 

But eventually, you realize that some of life's decisions just can't be hinged on a silly, little rhyme. Sadly, it can't always work that way. Some choices are just bigger than that. Bigger than catching "a tiger by his toe" until he tells you which college to go to or which career to pick.

 

Well, I'm here to tell you that yes, I make my decisions a little differently now. I put a little more thought into things.

I've been wrestling with a rather big decision for some time now. In order to graduate next spring, I need to complete an internship this summer. I've went back and forth on where I should do it. I've weighed all of the positives and negatives, researched a zillion different possibilities, and spent a whole lot of time in prayer. Yet somehow, my decision didn't seem to be any easier.

You see, here's what I wanted: I wanted God to come in a giant bolt of lightning and write a flaming message in the sky telling me where to go and what to do with my life. I wanted Him to shout down from above in a deep, booming, dramatic voice "Megan, go to "such-and-such!" I wished it could be that easy. That clear. That definite.

But you know, God doesn't work in quite that way. He surely could if He wanted to, but I think He likes the fact that we kind of have to figure things out for ourselves. He gives us all the help we could ever need along the way, but it's in a more subtle and gentle way. It's His still, small voice.

So, I wrestled with my decision some more. I knew where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to Shepherds. That place holds such a special spot in my heart. And I knew that I would really love having the chance to do an internship there. But some things were holding me back. Would I be able to support myself without an income? Would I receive adequate experience for the required college course? Would this internship look good on my resume? Most importantly, does God want me to go somewhere else?

A few Sundays ago, a missionary spoke at our church. I didn't get to hear the message because I was working in the nursery, but my mom heard it. As soon as we got in the car, my mom said, "Megan, you have got to listen to that message." When she heard it, she immediately thought of me and the decision that I was trying to make. So, later that week, I listened to the message online. (For those who may be interested, click here.) It was really good. The missionary, Graham Foran, talked about faith, what it was and what it wasn't. He brought out many valid and thought-provoking points, but the part of his message that hit me the most was his story of how he was called to the mission field.

Mr. Foran said that he had felt like he was being called to be a missionary in Brazil, but he decided to bathe the idea in prayer. He prayed over and over again that if God wanted him to go to Brazil that He would make it very clear. He prayed this for days, but nothing seemed to be happening on God's end. At one point, Mr. Foran realized something. He realized that this desire to go to Brazil to be a missionary and proclaim the gospel was not a desire that the devil would give him. So, if the desire was not from the devil, it had to be from God. Makes sense, right?

So, instead of praying that God would make it very clear if He wanted him to go to Brazil, Mr. Foran prayed something different. He told God that he was going to go to Brazil, and if God didn't want him there, to stop him.

Mr. Foran knew God had placed that desire in his heart. After hearing his story, it made me realize that God had placed a desire in my heart, too. It makes me think of a verse.

"Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart."

 Psalm 37:4

A lot of people misuse this verse to seek their own advantage. They think that if they do what God wants them to do, then He will give them whatever they want. Not exactly. This verse just means that if we are aligned with what God deems as good and right, then our desires will be the same as His desires. We end up wanting the same things for ourselves that God wants for us. The desires coincide.

God gave me the desire to go to Shepherds because that's what God wants for me. Our thoughts are the same. Isn't that so cool? Once I realized that, it was very easy to make my decision. I am going to Shepherds this summer. And I am so excited! I know God has something great planned for me, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

I finally made the decision to step out in faith and follow my desire to go to Shepherds. And that decision was so much easier than any game of "Eenie Meenie Miney Moe" that I've ever played.

Sweet Injustice

"It's not fair!" - Working with 3, 4, and 5-year-olds every week and living with a 6-year-old pretty much guarantees that I hear this phrase on a regular basis. When they don't get to finish a puzzle, when it's not their turn to be the line leader, when someone else is treated differently from them - "It's not fair!" It amazes me how early on this sense of injustice is bred into these little human beings. Often, their application of this perceived injustice is a little off, but they do understand it to some extent. They are seeking out a sense of equality.

When thinking about this topic, I marveled at the number of times that I hear these dear, little ones proclaim that "it's not fair!" But then, it hit me how often I utter something very similar. When someone else in my family uses all of the ink in the printer right before I need to turn in a paper, when a fellow student rips my coat and doesn't apologize, when I get two flat tires at once - "This is so not fair!" I am so incredibly guilty of overusing this phrase. And the sad thing is that most of the time, I'm using it to describe something that's miniscule, petty, or just not worth the drama.

There are many people who probably feel like they have legitimate reasons to claim that life's not fair. When they lose a job, when a friend betrays them, when a loved one passes away - "It's not fair!" These circumstances are heartbreaking and much more worthy of this statement than an unfinished puzzle or a ripped coat. I'm not trying to minimize these difficult trials in any way. But I'm going to be honest: Life's not fair. This is the truth. But I believe we should be thankful for this injustice.

Think about it. The world's justice system and God's justice system. Totally different. In the world's justice system, we are constantly trying to balance things. Equal rights. Equal opportunity. Equal, equal, equal. Now, I'm not trying to say these movements are right or wrong. That's not my point. My point is that we work so hard to make everything the same for everyone.

Think of it like a see-saw. The world's justice system "see-saw" is perfectly balanced. Everyone is positioned carefully on the see-saw, in a line covering all the way from one end to the other end. Each person's position on the see-saw is based on their number of good deeds compared to their number of bad deeds. Depending on the numbers, some people will end up closer to the good side, some people will end up closer to the bad side, and some people will end up somewhere in the middle. The weights on each side counteract each other, and the result is a steady, straight see-saw. Balanced. Uniform. Even.

Now, consider God's justice system. There are two places to sit on God's justice system "see-saw." There's the perfect seat and the imperfect seat. That's it. There's no sitting in the middle on God's see-saw. I can't be in between perfect and imperfect; I'm either one or the other. Period. With this being the case, God's see-saw is grossly unbalanced. Only one Person, Jesus Christ, can sit in the perfect seat, and the rest of the world is crammed into the imperfect seat. The imperfect seat holds so much weight that it rests at rock-bottom while the perfect seat and it's Inhabitant rise sky-high. Terribly disproportionate. Yet, in God's justice system, this is just. Fair. Right.

It is hard for us to grasp this. We want everything to fit our definition of "fair." If a murderer and a candy-store thief stood trial at the same time, we would want the murderer to receive a much harsher punishment, but to God, the sin is the same. It's still sin. On a similar note, a faithful servant of Christ who has been a Christian for 60 years would receive the same acceptance into Heaven as an avid atheist who then professed Christ's name within the last week of his life. Do we frown at this? Do we purse our lips and shake our heads? Why? Maybe because our engrained definition of fairness fed to us by the world dictates that this is not fair. Just. Right.

Here's where it gets good! Think about God's justice system "see-saw" again. Remember how unbalanced it was? Remember how many people were squished together on the imperfect seat? Remember the sole Occupant of the perfect seat? Well, if Christ is the only One who is perfect, and Heaven is reserved for only those who are sinless, how is it that there are people in Heaven today?

God looked at that see-saw. He saw how unbalanced, how disproportionate it was, and He said that it was just. Fair. Right. Jesus Christ, the only perfect Being, sat on the perfect seat, and everyone else sat where they belonged, the imperfect seat. This was right. But God did something. He decided to be "unfair." Mind you, this statement is made using the world's definition of fairness. God has always acted in line with His definition of fairness. He is always just. But if we look at it from the world's perspective, what happened next seems "unfair."

God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, away from that perfect seat down to earth where all the imperfect people lived. Christ lived among us and still remained without sin. But one day, Christ did something for us. He took all the imperfect people's sins, from past, present, and future, and laid them all upon Himself. He sat on that imperfect seat for us, so we might have the chance to accept Him as our Savior and spend eternal life in Heaven, that place of sinless perfection.

God allowed life to be "unfair." It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a back-up plan. It was life, and it was not fair, in a magnificent way. Because life is unfair, Christ died for me. Because life is unfair, the punishment for my sin has been erased. Because life is unfair, I get to go to Heaven, and that is the most beautiful gift anyone could have given me: sweet injustice.

Life's not fair. Thank goodness.