26 Sep Secret Choices for God
September 26, 2011
Each day brings opportunities, large and small, to make secret choices for God’s eyes alone: attitudes and thoughts, along with their resulting words and actions.
Though no one sees these choices or knows how difficult they are, there is great reward in them.
And there is a hidden garden, full of rare and unearthly pleasure, in learning to rejoice when no one besides God sees these choices.
One of my earthly heroes is Amy Carmichael (1867-1951). As a missionary in India, she fell and was bedridden for the last 20 years of her life. Her words, written from her bed in India during her difficult final years of illness, give special significance for those who find themselves struggling with health issues today:
“True valor lies, not in what the world calls success, but in the dogged going on when everything in the man says, ‘Stop.’ … The refusal of softness … Let us face it now: Which is harder? To be well and doing things, or to be ill and bearing things? It was a long time before I saw the comfort that is in that question. Here we may find our opportunity to crucify that cowardly thing, the softness that would sink to things below, self-pity, dullness, selfishness, ungrateful gloom” (Amy Carmichael, Rose from Brier, Chapter 11).
It is far more difficult to “be ill and bear things”—soldiering on, unselfishly, choosing thankfulness—than “to be well and doing things,” as challenging and tiring as those things may be.
The latter is widely acknowledged and applauded; the former is often seen only by God, yet is priceless in value if done for him.
Question: What secret choice for God can you make today?