Genesis 13:11-13

The direction we choose to pitch our tents and live our lives matters. The land of Canaan wasn’t the place of choice for anyone who wanted a life of pleasure. It was a hard place that required sacrifice, blood, sweat, and tears. Absolute faith in God was needed to live there, but it was the right way.

Pitching his tent toward Sodom looked right and had many pleasures and advantages over the nomad life of Abraham. Time always has a way of proving our choice right or wrong. The night came when Lot struggled with his soul like one who was trying to escape hell. Abraham stood in a distant land and pleaded with God for his nephew.

From the beginning, and throughout the Bible, life is about making choices on how we will live, and whom we will serve. I think I see the problem with Lot’s choice. He chose for “himself.” “I want what I want,” is as far away from the life of Jesus as anyone can get. That kind of decision making has ruined many lives, broken up families, and left a multitude with tears of regret and sorrow.

When our praying loses the spirit of “Thy will be done,” then the will of a thousand others will tempt and impose themselves upon us. They will not be kind and gracious like Christ. At first they may seem harmless and gratifying; but many have learned that the little birds of temptation can suddenly turns vicious with powerful talons.

You and I will have many choices today. Some will be right, some wrong, but let none be without prayerful thought. And when we make a choice that is unwise, may we be quick to repent and pray with an earnest heart, “forgive us”, and then, “thy will be done.”

We too have someone who is pleading for us.

“Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies,
Mercies for you and for me?”