[This reflection by Michael Goble was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 19/Feb/2023]
Barbara and I are not the sort of people to have meals at an expensive restaurant, and we are quite happy to have a pub meal or to eat a meal at a moderately priced restaurant. We were once invited out by a couple to have dinner with them, and it was in a restaurant where you would not wish to make a fool of yourself.
We drank our aperitifs, ordered our meals and then the wine waiter brought over the wine list. Our host worked for a hotel chain and was a wine expert, and so that wasn’t going to be a problem, until he passed the list to me and suggested that I chose the wine. I looked down the list and did not recognise the names of any of the wines. There was only one thing to do. In my mind I took a pin and stuck it somewhere in the middle of the list. I ordered the wine as though I knew exactly what I was doing and handed the list back to the waiter. I then sat back and waited for the comments from our friend. I was really surprised when he said, “That was a very good choice. It’s just the wine I would have ordered”. What a miracle! I felt how good the Lord is at just the time we need Him.
There are many times in our lives when we have to make choices, quite often for the important things, such as what career do I follow, who do I marry, what house or car do I buy. In these days for many people it has to be a choice between spending limited resources on food or energy, on our children or on ourselves. For the earthquake survivors in Turkey or Syria it is a desperate choice of how to survive with little or no food or water, with no shelter as the remaining buildings are unsafe, with temperatures well below freezing. Those choices make my earlier choice over choosing the wine completely unimportant.
The most important choice in my life was when I was young to thank Jesus for dying for me on the cross and rising again. By believing this I received forgiveness for all I have done wrong in my life and the promise of life forever with Him. If you haven’t already made that choice I believe it is becoming increasingly urgent for you to do it now.
Over many years we have found that God has guided us with our choices in every stage of our lives. When we last moved house nearly 49 years ago we couldn’t decide which town to live in. We showed the house details to a Christian friend who moved the three houses in Edenbridge at the bottom of the pile to the top and told us to look at those. The next day a family member gave us a cutting from a newspaper for one of those three properties. That one was the right choice and we are still here. The Lord wanted to use it for Inter-church Lent meetings, home groups for 40 years, Alpha courses, and even for a sit down meal for over twenty young people from our church youth group.
Whenever we need to make a choice large or small, just leave it to the Lord and He will make His choice. When we give our lives to Him He makes the right choice every time. Even Jesus in Luke 22:42, when He had the hardest choice to make, said, “Father, if it is your will, take this cup of suffering away from me. Not my will, however, but your will be done”. At great cost the Father made the greatest choice ever in sacrificing His Son for us.
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Last week’s reflection: Servants or Friends? by Helen Ruffhead
Contributed by Michael Goble; © Michael Goble