Reckoning Days and Turning Points

A post based on fleeting thoughts and less on Scripture. ~ Andy

These types of posts don’t come often but occasionally they crop up. So I type.

There are times in life that the direction your future will shoot off into unseen directions. Your life from that point forward will hinge upon specific moments. They are reckoning days. Some call it coming to a crossroads. I’ve been through a few of them, some good and some bad. Some sent me down a road to ruin and others sent me to the exultation of triumph in the Lord.

Where were those hinge points? I can tell you right now they were decisions that hinged on decisions made on biblical principles or lack of them. The outcomes of all the unbiblical decisions always landed me in a firm world of hurt. The alcohol and drug addictions. The decisions to pursue employment and recreation that was counter to the Bible always boded poorly for me. The other side of this was the decisions that aligned with biblical principles. I will admit that sometimes taking the biblical path may have not been the easiest physically or mentally…in benefited spiritually.

The paths that were in line with the will of God and Scripture were not easier to make because they were smoother, it just reaped less of a cost on my conscience in the long wrong. To be perfectly honest, some of the decisions that needed to be made to remain obedient to the word of God were downright excruciating and counter intuitive at times. Often this will be the tell-tale sign you are on the right course for your life. Is it too easy a walk? Does it seem too good to be true? Most often it is. God did not give Jesus the easy path, but the hard one. He did not spare His Son the cup of His wrath. It all ended up giving glory to God and worked out to the eternal well-being of the faithful.

Luke 22:42 ~ “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

You will also know you are on the correct path, God’s chosen path for you due to one thing. Resistance. The spiritual battle against you will be suffocating and brutal. Those that go through constant spiritual battle are most likely following the course that God has mapped out or allowed and this infuriates the demonic realm. It is like salt in their wound. Although we cannot attribute every last negative aspect to the demonic, it is quite probable that if we are frequently encountering trials, tribulations and persecution, the demonic is involved.

The largest pivot point in a person’s life is the trusting of Jesus Christ in their life and the internalization of the Gospel. There are other lesser incidents. They will vary from person to person. The decision to marry or not marry. The decision to have children. The decisions that one will need to make to decide a vocation or employment (or quit). The decisions that one wishes to resist: Divorce, suicide, murder.

When we come to these points what will be our moral bearing for making said decisions. Do we rely on other’s opinions or our own? Or do we trust God and His word which has allowed people to make sound decisions since the beginning? Do we do what is culturally trendy or acceptable but inevitably regrettable or do we base a decision on an ethical absolute that has existed since time immemorial?

The truth is...we can never know with certainty where our decisions will lead us. What I can say with certainty is that bad decisions can usually only lead to bad directions and bad destinations.  Righteous and holy decisions can only lead to righteous and holy destinations. The two are not compatible. Painful does not mean bad and pleasurable does not mean good. We all learned this when we were children yet many of us still pursue with zeal what a child knows may not always be true. How we deal with and address these hinge points in life defines whether we are children or adults. Where these decisions lead us defines whether we are righteous or unrighteous….holy or unholy.