I Chose And My World Was Shaken. So What?

February 12, 2012

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Read the post while it plays.

OK- Here’s the thing. This idea of choice and consequence is chasing me this weekend.  Some of the reasons:

Tonni and I have been teaching a class @ The Gathering on Sunday mornings, Walking The Bible. The last few weeks have focused on the soap opera of Genesis 12-50 where we find the story of Abraham and Sarah and Ishmael and Issac and Jacob with his two wives and Joseph’s bad boy brothers and even Lot and his daughters (yuck). At every turn, people make bad choices with consequences haunt us to this day. One of my favorite bad choices is in chapter 25. Goes like this:

²⁹ Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country famished . ³⁰ He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom. ³¹ Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” ³² “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”  ³³ But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.

                Duh. Esau was the eldest brother. He was supposed to be the guy through whom God’s promises to their grandfather Abraham would be fulfilled. He almost had it all, but he sold it for stew. One friend says he’s tempted to get all judgmental about it-until he looks in the mirror.

                I’m doing some pre-marital counseling with a young couple right now. I’m so grateful for their outlook. They’re making good choices. They’re concerned with marriage and family and how to be the best they can be for each other and how to take hold of and treasure and care for the great gift they have been given. I’m reminded of the world-shaking bad choices I made early on in my own marriage and the way in which they still echo in my relationship to the most beautiful woman on Earth. I am grateful for the grace of God (and of Tonni) that brought us through.

Last night I went to a high school class reunion event, normally a judgmental place, but it was warm and truly friendly. It was filled with people who have made choices; some good and some bad. Some of the consequences have cost people many years of their lives. Some have come through the worst and others are still working it out.  No one came to judge or condemn or to give too much credit but, rather to be grateful for the grace that allowed us a few minutes to catch up and be glad to have known each other, no matter what our choices or their consequences.

You already know that Whitney Houston died yesterday. She had the birthright; the gene pool, the family connections in the business, stunning physical beauty, and that amazing instrument. When people die, we tend to minimize the impact of bad choices, the ones that shake our world. I am certain that a little while from now on the Grammy Awards, no one will acknowledge hers; but everyone will remember. Somewhere along the line a bowl of stew came along and looked better than the legacy the lady could have enjoyed. The recording you have been listening to is ample evidence of the cost of what was sacrificed.

But I’m not here to judge. I have a mirror of my own to look into. There’s a video floating around of Whitney’s last performance; less than a minute on Friday evening. She sang, “Jesus Loves Me”. He did. She knew it. And you know what? He didn’t come to judge. He came to love her and grant her grace.

Here’s where it’s easy to wax way too poetic and become saccharine. See, I believe that Whitney was given a great gift of eternal life. I’d like to think she got that voice back but I don’t know, and I’ll gross myself out (and most of you) if I start talking about playing concerts in heaven and schlock like that  (see The Righteous Brothers- Rock N Roll Heaven). NO. The point is that many of us have made some bad rhyme along the way. I hang all of my hope on grace. Grace is this gift that Jesus came to bring. It means that, though there are consequences (and some of them world shaking) for our actions, through it all  and at the end of it all, for those who simply take hold of this free gift, there is forgiveness and a restored relationship to God; one that lasts for eternity. Grace was God’s invention and His choice. Count me grateful.