How to Make U-Turns in LifeSample

Day 1: Freedom to Choose

Decisions really do matter. 

When God created humanity, He gave us a will with a capacity to choose. We all have the freedom to make our own choices. Within God’s sovereign boundaries, He has established a field of play that allows for our decisions.

In creation God sits sovereignly over our field of play. He has established certain lines that are non-negotiable. He is King. He sets the boundaries in His realm. Yet within those lines, He has also chosen to give us freedom. He has given us choice. He has created us with the uniquely human characteristic known as freewill.

In giving humanity choice, evil became an option. God never forced evil into the human equation. Rather, He allowed it. However, humanity actualizes it when we choose anything that goes against the sovereign and preferred will of God’s rule.

You and I have been given freedom. And while that truth delights us, what many often forget is that with freedom comes responsibility. Yes, we have the freedom to choose for God or to choose against God. Yet, while we have full ability to make our own choices in this life we’ve been given, we do not get to choose the consequences. Those have been predetermined by God. 

The freedom to choose is not the freedom to determine the outcomes of those choices. That is a very critical point to understand because oftentimes when we find ourselves searching for a U-turn or hoping for a reversal or calling on God to deliver us, we forget that it was our own choices that got us lost to begin with. And when we forget that, we also forget to come before the Lord in a spirit of humility rather than entitlement. 

For the next few days, we’ll look together at a few specific strongholds or negative outcomes with which we all occasionally struggle. 

Making an effective U-turn from the negative outcomes in your life begins with repentance—internal resolve and determination to acknowledge sin, turn away from sin, and move toward God. When you seek to repair your relationship with God through this internal resolve to deal with your sin, you have set the stage for your U-turn.

We can make a U-turn on any wrong road at any time and start choosing life. This U-turn begins on an off-ramp named Repentance. It starts by acknowledging the choices, or pattern of choices, that you have aligned and made under any other influencer than God Himself. It starts in this spirit of humility that admits wrongdoing.

Then, it continues on an overpass called Grace. This is what God gives you as you are returning to the Lord. You move forward by aligning your choices under His rule, according to His commandment of love while taking heart the principles of His Word.

Here’s to your U-turn. Your best is yet to come.