God has been speaking to me about the COST of my Free Will choices…
Gen 1:27-31
“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, s“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. tYou shall have them for food. 30 And uto every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 vAnd God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”
Gen 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (emphasis mine)
Gen 3
Now uthe serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You1 shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, v‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 wBut the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,2 she took of its fruit xand ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, yand he ate. 7 zThen the eyes of both were opened, aand they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool3 of the day, and the man and his wife bhid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”4 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, cbecause I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, d“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, e“The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and fdust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring5 and gher offspring;
hhe shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
iin pain you shall bring forth children.
jYour desire shall be for6 your husband,
and he shall krule over you.”
17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
lof which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
mcursed is the ground because of you;
nin pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
ofor you are dust,
and pto dust you shall return.”
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.7 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
22 Then the Lord God said, q“Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand rand take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden sto work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the tcherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
God has been speaking to me about the cost of my Free Will choices. My choices come at a cost to me and came at a GREAT COST to God. My choices cost Him His SON.
Isaiah 53
Who has believed what he has heard from us?1
And to whom has hthe arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
iand like a root out of dry ground;
jhe had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 kHe was despised and rejected2 by men;
a man of sorrows,3 and acquainted with4 grief;5
and as one from whom men hide their faces6
he was despised, and lwe esteemed him not.
4 mSurely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
nsmitten by God, and afflicted.
5 oBut he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
pand with his wounds we are healed.
6 qAll we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
rand the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
syet he opened not his mouth;
tlike a ulamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, vwho considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
wand with a rich man in his death,
although xhe had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet yit was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;7
zwhen his soul makes8 an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
athe will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see9 and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall bthe righteous one, my servant,
cmake many to be accounted righteous,
dand he shall bear their iniquities.
12 eTherefore I will divide him a portion with the many,10
fand he shall divide the spoil with the strong,11
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
gyet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
I know this a lot to read, if you are not a regular bible reader. But this has been pressed into my heart lately. This is why.
Many of you who know us, know that we have a hard two years. Tom lost his dad in January of 2011 and I lost my mom in March of 2011. That time period was really hard for us and started a cycle of our free will choices that has led to a high cost for our family.
We’ve spent MUCH of the past two years trying to get back to our Shangri la, the place where we both found Jesus! The place where we were healed from brokenness and strongholds from our past; The place where we met and fell in love, married, adopted our first son, and dreamed of our future, IN FLORIDA.
Tom found a “Perfect” job back in late 2011 that would have had us moving to the Tampa area, with a great company and compassionate owner. However, when we finally found a house she told Tom she no longer had a job for him. That’s when we decided to just try to stay in GA and I wrote my last post, “Live, where you are.”
Then we began lots of updating to our home and made some more permanent plans. Lots of work went into the yard and painting, gutters, mulch, new porch… LOTS of money, time and sweat. But worth it.
But the old feelings never went away. We still wanted to live in FL. My dad came back home, after traveling the US for 18 months. And I missed my dad. We were visiting FL A LOT, going to our church there, spending time with family and friends, desiring to be there, instead of living here. So Tom started to seek a job there again. We looked at several business opportunities, to no avail. Then Tom found a job ad in his National reporting magazine and the process began again…
He interviewed with this company that would allow us to live where we wanted to and he would travel some days and work locally others. Also, Tom contacted an old friend, in the business, and she said she needed a new reporter and talked with him about joining her team as well. Everything seemed like it would work. (Did I mention that we never really came together to pray about this?) With two job offers, good ones at that, and a paper budget that looked like it could work, we began a new journey to get back HOME.
So we put our newly renovated home on the market, we bought a home in FL, sold here, and moved over the Thanksgiving break from school. We enrolled the kids in the Christian School at our Church, we painted, put in new -flooring, set up home and started to live in our new home. But everything felt wrong…
The first job went away in the first few weeks. They were literally paying less than he was earning. They had a lot of rules that were not disclosed until he signed a work contract and he left the company quickly. The second job, with our old friend, was good, but what she considered great money was not paying the bills. At the end of three months Tom’s total income was only $900. So we made the decision to go back to Rincon, Ga, the place that God told us to “Live, where you are.”
Remember I told you there was a cost to our free will choices? I am still “calculating” the cost. But here is the gist. There has been a HUGE financial cost between the move, renovations to the house in FL, set up costs in FL, not having sold our home in FL, and the set up costs again here in Ga, we’re feeling the cost in a big way.
The cost to the emotional well being of our entire family has been unexpected and costly. Moving is stressful anyway, but moving twice in 3 months is almost more than a family can bear. We moved back to our old neighborhood so it would be an easier transition for the boys, and so they could be in the same school and classes. That part has been good. But they still miss FL, family, school church… I am working with their teachers and the school counselor to help them through this transition and I know it will all be fine.
The personal cost to my emotional state has been the most unexpected. I’ve spent my whole life moving. We moved for my dad’s jobs several times, and I look back at those times in my life as good. But somehow, my near 48 yr old little girl is struggling this time. Tom suggested that I increase my anti depressant, that has helped. But even though I have great friends here, and a regular Friday morning coffee date, I am still sad. I have gained a lot of weight. I know it is from the stress and depression, and I feel like I have already lost some, just because I run up and down these stirs 50 times a day! I’m prayerful that losing some weight, along with the increased anti depressants, and the impending sunshine, I will be on the mend soon…
The costs keep adding up, and just the other day, I remembered something that was told to Tom by a friend. He said he wanted to go on a mission trip, he knew it was the best thing for his family and he knew God would be PRAISED and EXHAULTED by the whole trip. But… there was a huge financial burden involved and he just didn’t know if they could do it. But God told him it had to cost him. He needed to feel something in order for him to KNOW the cost for his life. It had to cost him so he would understand the cost of Gods love for him, it was the death of His SON.
This journey HAS to cost us something so we will know the cost of our lives. We need to FEEL the cost. God gave His Son for us to live in a world filled with choices. When we choose to live on our own, with out Him, we will have to pay a price. The price will be determined by what God feels we need to pay to understand and to FEEL.
WE do have FREE WILL. We do have the ability to make choices in our life. Tom and I have chosen many good things, some great things, and some bad things. All of them add up. We chose God first. We chose each other second. We have chosen to teach our children, in the best way we know how, to love God and TRUST Him in all things. Sometimes we fail, but God grants us new mercy each day.
The new mercy here is that we get to start over again. We get to choose Him each day. We get to live where He has chosen for our family to live. We get to pay the cost for our free will choices. The cost will be determined by our Loving God, the ONE who has saved us from a pit of muck and mire, and delivered us into Glorious Light in a life everlasting…
Psa 40:1-3
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.