Monday 22 Sep 2014

September 23: 2 Samuel 24:10-17

Key Verse: 2 Samuel 24:13
So Gad came to David and told him; and he said to him, “Shall seven[a] years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to Him who sent me.”

Devotion:
What would you do when faced with the choices that were given to David? Would you choose the shortest punishment or the one that you thought would bring least death and destruction? To be honest I really don’t know that I could make a decision like that and would rather defer it to God. But David had already made a decision that was going to affect the whole of Israel and God was bringing that issue home to him now!

The decisions that we make in our lives do not just affect us, there are times when the things we do will affect many more people around us than we think. We are quite selfish when it comes down to it. We think in the circle of events and consequences in our minds which excludes many people. We go off on benders thinking that we are just venting our frustrations when in reality we are affecting all the people involved with us. I do struggle to keep going at times because I know that my actions may cause distress to other people, but when you have a choice between bad things or worse things, the choice gets a whole lot harder to make.

God would rather that we chose to listen to Him all the time so that we could follow in His will from the beginning. He has planned a path that is good in our lives and good for all the people around us. We choose things that break those paths and we end up hurting other people because of our bad choices. When you add up all the bad choices of all of the people around us then you begin to see why God has such a hard time with us all!

God has made the right choices for us and He would rather that we listened in the beginning to go on that predestined path. When we stray from His ways we may find it very difficult to get back on the straight and narrow path. Whatever we do, we should be following God and His instruction!

Points to Ponder:
Do you always listen?

Will you listen now?