Tag Archives: Devotional

Just Do It

Read Joshua 24:1-16

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” (James 1:22)

Just-Do-ItI am currently in the middle of another juice fast. Every quarter of a year or so, I go on a fast to reboot my body, to cleanse it of toxins, and to get myself back on track in terms of healthy eating and healthy living. The first couple of days of juicing are hard because the body is getting used to not eating, and all you can think of is eating. Also, the body is detoxing from the toxins that processed foods, caffeinated foods/beverages, and other food products deposit in it.  After the first two to three days, I start to feel golden, filled with energy and life. All is good.

Many people ask me how I can possibly do a juice fast, or how I can remain vegan. They usually will commend me on my iron will power and question I can possibly enjoy food anymore. After all, vegans don’t like eating right? I mean how could a vegan ever enjoy eating vegetables all the time? Aren’t veggies meant to be side dishes and not the main course?

Of course, I do not have iron will power. You can trust me on that. If I did I would not have gotten to 306 lbs to begin with. I just got to the point where my health became more important to me than any excuse I could possibly come up with. That’s what it came down to, I got fed up with making excuses and just started doing it.

People make excuses for a lot of things. When people find themselves facing a decision they know they should make but don’t want to, they will find reasons as to why they can’t do it.  I’m too tired…I’m just not skilled enough…I like this food or that food too much to switch now…I’m a nobody, so what difference can I make? These excuses and more are made as reasons for not making a decision to change and move forward.

As Joshua pointed out to the Israelites, we all find ourselves at some crossroad or another. We find ourselves facing down a decision to change. It’s time to choose now, this day, who we will serve. Will we serve our comfort zone and the status quo in order to avoid the changes we need to make? Will we serve our fears and make excuses as to why we CAN’T do things? Or will we serve God and make the necessary change because we’ve finally come to realize that the change needs to be made and God is calling us to make it. Whatever that change is, whatever God is calling you to do, stop excusing yourself, make the change, and see God’s iron will carry you through it.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” – Benjamin Franklin

PRAYER

Lord, I don’t want to make excuses anymore. I choose to make the decision to change from who I am to who you are calling me to be. Amen.

THE WAY, Part 2

Read Matthew 4:17-25

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE

“When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” (John 14:3-4, NLT)

the-way-1Just the other night I watched a film that I had been meaning to watch for the past couple of years. Being a busy person, I kept forgetting about it until the other night. I was perusing Netfilx and I came across the movie, “The Way,” and remembered that I wanted to see it. The film was written and directed by Emilio Estevez and stars his father, Martin Sheen.

The film is about a father who discovers that his son died during a storm while backpacking on the Camino de Santiago (“The Way of St. James”), which is of various lengths depending on where you start. The father, who spontaneously decides to complete his son’s trek, started in France and traveled by foot approximately 800 km or 497 miles. Along the way, the father meets and, eventually befriends, several people along the way.

In a flashback scene, the father is remembering an argument he had with his son. He wasn’t happy with his son’s life choices, and he thought his 40 year old son’s passion for world travel was frivolous. In the argument his son questions him on why he doesn’t just go on the trip with him. He also questions why his dad insists on basing his life around work and other such things. His father replies, “You may not think much of my life, but it’s the one I choose.”

At that moment his son replies, “You don’t choose a life dad, you live one.” Wow, what words of wisdom. His father didn’t reply to him that day, which would be the last day he ever saw his son alive, but those words forever echoed in his head. “You don’t choose a life dad, you live one.” His son had hit upon something that would take him an 800 km trek to discover.

We often go about our daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routines as if we have chosen the lives we have. But have we? Did you choose to be born? Did you choose what family you were born into? Did you choose what schools you were first educated in? Did you choose every last detail of your life? The fact is, while we do have and make choices that affect our lives, we do not choose our lives. They are a gift given to us by God through our parents. Life is a gift that is meant to be used, and used abundantly.

Along The Way, the father discovers that life is meant to be lived and he discovers that living life means living it in the company of others, even those who seem worlds apart from who you are. We do not get to choose our lives, but we do get to choose to live them and to be a presence of hope and faith, of love, support and encouragement for others along the way of our life’s journey.

Christ calls us, as his disciples, to live life through sharing in the journey with others. Jesus was not just one person out in the country side, choosing his life all by himself; rather, he chose to journey with and encourage others who rather different than him. Sometimes their differences were downright frustrating; yet, Jesus chose to love them. From that loving bond came an even larger community of people who chose to join in with them, a community that continues on to this day through the Church. Today’s challenge is for you to stop pretending you choose your life and start living it. Live it in the presence of the people around you and live it in, through and with love! That is THE WAY to the Kingdom of Heaven.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

Make Jesus the way you live your life.

PRAYER

Lord, I want to be more like you. Though I do not choose my life, I choose to live my life for you. Amen.