ROOTED RENEGADE

Today was not like a normal day. At least not for me. Maybe it was for you. Maybe for you, like many others, you woke up as you normally do. Completed your morning routines with sleep still lagging around you, that stuff in your eyes that you can barely get out until the hot shower hits you. Maybe the smell of hot brewing coffee perks you up in the morning. Could it be the dog who needs to go out or the cat who smacks you in the face for attention? Maybe the kids need to get off to school and you still have lunches to make because you forgot to do it last night in your exhaustion. Stumbling through the morning, you prepare for the day ahead. However you wake up is how your tone for the rest of the 12-18 hours you function in your usual mundane routine will go. Day after day, you wake, do, breathe, eat, function, then off to do it all over again tomorrow.

Choice. It is defined as a noun: “an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities” (www.dictionary.com). We make choices every day. As I stated above, some of us go on each day in our mundane routines choosing to live life, over and over, the same as yesterday, possibly with new challenges, but mostly the routine is the same. Choice. Most of us have it. Many of us have it stripped away. Maybe that first time you said YES to someone, that was choice. The first decision to get high. The first decision to kiss a boy/girl. The first decision to get a car. The first decision to date. The first decision to dance. The first decision to let your child go to prom. There are so many times in life when the first choice can lead to either good or bad decisions and consequences that have lasting impacts on our lives. Either way, it starts with a choice.

Right. Dictionary.com defines right as: “that which is morally correct, just, or honorable. A moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way”. When most of think of something as “a right” we think of “a right of passage” or not knowing right from wrong. Of course we have “rights” just like we have “choices”. Often I think we get the two confused. Just because you may have a right doesn’t mean you make the choice to act upon it. Or just because you make a choice doesn’t mean it is morally correct or just and for many of us they have not always been honorable. In the legal sense of a “right” it is what gets stripped away with convictions in a court of law. Your 2nd or 4th amendment rights are usually the first to go. Along with many freedoms that you may have once enjoyed or at least entertained.

Choice vs. Right. In case you were wondering where I was going with this…here it is. Those who have survived domestic violence and trafficking understand the difference between choice and right. Those who have been incarcerated understand the difference between choice and right. Those who have struggled in poverty understand the difference between choice and right. Those who have suffered for the sake of the cross understand the difference between choice and right. Both can be taken away very quickly. Both can be manipulated. Both can be misconstrued. Both can cause years of feeling unwanted, unworthy, and unloved. One choice based on circumstances can lead to no rights. One choice based on circumstances can lead to no choice at all. Far too often our society is based on the “pro-choice”, “_______ rights” (you fill in the blank), etc. Not to be legalistic or anything here, but let’s face it, choice and right are so detrimentally misconstrued in our society that most people don’t even know what their identity is, let alone healthy choices.

All that to say this….today is the day to choose life. Choose life over death. Don’t wait. Understanding the difference between choice and what your right is can make a vast difference in your perception. The cross was a choice. Jesus got on the cross by His own choice by following the will of God. Not because it was His right, right of passage, etc. No! He was nailed to a tree because He chose LIFE.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 says this: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, love the Lord your God, obey him, and remain faithful to him. For he is your life, and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the Lord swore to give your fathers, Abraham, Issac, and Jacob”.

Choose life. Choose. Choice. We may or may not have rights. But we always have the first choice. So choose this day “whom you will serve….but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:14-15 paraphrased).

@b3autifullyr3deemed / Grace 12 LLC