choosing to lose

today's qt made me realise some things. first off, i'll confess that i haven't really had a quality-kind of qt in a while - it's been more of breezing through passages without any real study. but today things were different, and i'm pretty sure it's only because today i chose to set aside undisturbed, unrushed, unpressured time, and because i really just took my time dwelling in the word.

and what a difference it makes. when there isn't anything else on your mind, you're fully awake, and you really want to analyse and break down the passage and fit it all together again to understand it. so many times i just went with the flow of things and busyness, and let them take precedence and priority in my life. even when i did do qt, i made sure it was short and consoled myself that hey, at least i did it.

i guess i never realised that we really do have a choice, we shouldn't feel like slaves to time or work or stress, or even entertainment or friends. and it extends to all areas of how we spend our time. what jobs we choose to do or what cca/commitments we choose to take up - does it exhaust us and leave us with no time to commune with God and His people? are we choosing temporal, worldly enjoyment over the true joy that comes from building a relationship with our Lord and Saviour?

Jesus says, 'whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.' (Matthew 16:25-27)

now that we acknowledge we do have a choice,

may we choose to lose,

and find that He will save.