Swipe right to left - “Choices”

​Today, we live in a world where we hear the saying “swipe right or swipe left.”  This saying is about choices, we either choose to swipe or not to swipe. Think about cell phones, we swipe right to answer our phone, unlock our phone, respond to emails, browse through photos, and respond to emails. These are all choices that we make every time we use our phone. With our finger-tip dancing across devices, we navigate our life.  It’s estimated that the average American pulls his or her phone out to check it one hundred and fifty times each day. That’s once every six minutes.
 
However, have we every made a choice to swipe then we wished we didn’t because of the outcome of the swipe? The other day I was in the middle of a project and my phone rang and I had a choice to swipe and answer it or finish the project I was doing for work, which need to be done by the end of the day. Well, I answered my phone to have an unhappy client on the other end. After an hour on the phone defusing the situation and then spending an hour doing things for this client as a result of my phone call, my project was not turned in on time to my Vice President of the company. This didn’t sit well with him because he needed it for his boss. The choice I made to answer my phone cost me that day and put my boss behind schedule. So, how many times have we swiped right to have that choice cost us?
 
The choice I made that day caused a ripple effect. Yes, the choices we make will always cause a ripple effect in some way. It can have a positive or a negative ripple effect. The course of our lives is seldom determined by great, life-altering decisions. Our direction is often set by the small, day-to-day choices that chart the track on which we run. This is the substance of our lives – making choices.
 
About 5 years ago I made a choice to get a divorce. Prior to me filling for divorce, I made some choices that were not the best. The choices made had a huge ripple effect. It effected my kids, my relationship with my best friend, my family, and people from work. We have to remember each choice we make it has a ripple effect.
 
Sooner or later, we are all faced with life-changing circumstances. These are times when the normal comes to a screeching halt, when decisions are not easy, and when drawing close to God becomes our immediate focus. With “big” decisions we tend to slow down, knowing that what we do next will have long-lasting consequences – good or bad. But what if we took the same approach with the thousands of small decisions we make each day? Our everyday choices are just as much a part of God’s plan as where we go to school, what job we take, or who we marry.
 
In decisions big and small, our faithfulness to God causes a ripple effect that not only influences the present, but generations to come. Take Ruth’s faithfulness, for example. Ruth had no idea that the fruit of her obedience would include Jesus’ birth into her family line. She was the great-grandmother of King David, an ancestor of Jesus. So, what about us? Let’s say we understood all the “whys” behind what God is asking us to do. We would be more like robots than people who trust God. We may not know everything we want to know, but we know Who does.
 
 
Ephesians 3:20 says God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” And He does this “by His power that is in us.” God plans beyond what we could even dream to imagine or ask. And His power lives in us! That’s reason enough to live by faith, trusting Jesus to guide us each step of the way.
 
Through Him, our faithfulness will be an eternal echo bouncing off the walls of time.