While I sat by my computer on Wednesday, the FCA Daily Impact Play popped up. Every once in awhile FCA will rerun a devotion from the past if it still relates to the present. To my surprise, a devotion I had written two years ago resurfaced. And as I read what I had written, I immediately started to weep.

As followers of Christ, we are given a choice every day: Follow Him or follow our own selfish ways and desires. It is pretty simple and sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Well, God redirected my reading that morning to Romans 7 in which Paul writes about the struggle to do what is right, but falling into the trap of doing what he hates to do. It is the constant battle in our souls to do the right things by following God and His standard versus following our own plans and desires.  Thankfully, I/we know the answer to this ongoing struggle within: our relationship with Jesus Christ.

If you read Wednesday’s devotion, you read that I had made a decision to pray daily with my wife and to read God’s Word daily with my son. I would love to tell you that I have not missed a day of doing either, but I would be lying. My intentions are there, but my actions do not match those intentions most days. What gets in the way? My attitude, my selfishness, my way. They all get in the way of what God desires for me and my house. I know I am preaching to the choir now, but join me in prayer that together we all can do the right thing by following God’s way not our own.  God wants me to be more intentional about praying with my wife. God wants me to bring my son closer to Him through His Word. And God wants me to follow His plan for me, instead of my own selfish, sinful ways. But praise be to God that we are all sinners who can only be saved by His goodness and grace. Thank the Lord for allowing my own words to remind me what my priorities should be.