It's Your Choice | 1 Samuel

SPEAKER_1 (0:07)

Thank you for tuning in to the New Vision Podcast. Our prayer is that this message builds your faith, brings clarity and gives you hope. Enjoy the message.

Kevin (0:18)

If we haven't got the opportunity to meet, my name is Kevin. My wife Mel and I are honored to lead here at New Vision. We are so grateful that you are here with us today in the room and online. We are so honored that you would take time out of your day, out of your week to spend with us. And we've been in a study of 1 Samuel. This is week six. And what I want to encourage you to do is we continue on, like you're going to find out, like we're picking up where we left off last week. And we were in chapter nine of last week. And that means we're going to continue to walk through this book to discover what God would say to us. See, sometimes we kind of get in this habit of like, well, we're in a good series, like a good series is like four, five weeks, right? Like a month. Well, what if it takes longer for us to really get what God has for us? So we don't want to rush through. We're not going to skip through. We're going to take our time because I don't remember reading anywhere in scripture where it said that Jesus sprinted from one thing to the next thing. He walked as he made his way from one thing to the next thing, from one person to the next person, teaching us the pace that we need to be moving at. And sometimes we forget about that pace when it comes to us reading God's Word. We jump into a reading plan and we're so excited about what we're getting out of it, and we're so thankful for the first two, three, four days. And then we realize, man, it's a 365-day plan. Somebody help me.

The same words that God could give you day one, two, and three, can give you in day 200 The same things that you walked away with the first few weeks of like, oh man, God really spoke to me. I feel like this. Well, God's word is living inactive. He knows exactly what you're going through, who was going to be in the room, and he knows exactly what you need this morning. So let's continue to open up our hearts as we go through this incredible book in the Bible. And before we get there, I just want you to think about the number of decisions that you made this week. How many decisions do you think that you made? Like, it decisions, decisions on top of decisions. One decision sometimes feels like, yes, I'm done, but then that unlocks a whole other level of decisions that you get to make. And it doesn't help if, you know, people around you are the, well, whatever you think, you know, you're trying to get opinions to help with the decision, and they're like, oh, whatever. Well, you didn't help me at all. And so sometimes we feel like that's all we're doing is making one decision after another, after another, after another. And for some of us, like, it begins in the morning. What are we going to wear today? Like, some of you don't, we don't wear uniforms to work, and so we struggle with, what are we going to wear today? And then you think, not only what am I going to wear today, but did I wear this yesterday? What about last week? Would somebody remember it? Does that still have a stain on it? Did I put it in the laundry? Can I put it on again? I think I'm good. Like, we put all those things together, right? And we do, okay. And then, like, once you figure out what you're going to wear, then you're like, well, shoes go with what I'm going to wear. Yep. See, right there. And some of you are like, not only do the shoes need to match, but the hat has got to go as well. And you got to look through your catalog of things. You got to put everything together. And this is just one part of our day. And God forbid you're married and you need to eat sometime. And you ask that dreaded question, baby, what you want to eat?

All the guys that had been married for a while, we were dead silent right then. Because we know better. But that decision right there, it feels as if if this decision doesn't get made, no one's going to eat for the rest of their lives. Because as men, we know, like, we could pick, but we know that you said you don't care, but you don't mean that you don't care. That's what the experienced husbands or boyfriends in the room, like, we know that you just lied, but you didn't really mean to lie, you were trying to be nice. But when we picked that restaurant that we want to go to, and you don't want that. Well, I mean, if you want it, well, then we already know, like, we can't pick that, because they have a stomach ache later on, and blame us for the stomach ache. Why didn't you want to go there in the first place? Some choices that we're making, some decisions that we're making, like, they feel easy. And others, we feel the weight of those decisions as sometimes we feel like our lives hang in the balance, that what we choose will be a definition of who we are and what our lives will look like. I mean, the decisions like, who should I marry? It's a life-changing decision. Where should I work? Do I stay at this job? Do I look for another job? What am I actually supposed to be doing with my life? All of those things, big stuff, like those of you that are in high school right now, eventually you're going to be beginning to think about where should I go to college? What do I need to consider? What scholarships do I have? What do I really want to do? Do I need college? We begin to think of all these things. And it seems like at times these big decisions get all of our attention and all of our focus. But what if our lives aren't just shaped by those giant decisions? What if those big choices that we're making are important, but the small choices that we make every day matter just as much?