Hallelujah! Glory to God! As we enter into a new week of life on earth, we are invited to place our confidence in the Lord our God who have blessed us and kept us safe and secure throughout the past week as He has been always doing throughout our life so far. It is God’s promise to us that He will care for us with His protection and providence when trial and troubles come across our life, as it is written: The Lord will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore (Psalm 121:7-8; also refer to: 46:1; 91:11-12).

The Lord has blessed us with a rewarding Scripture passage for our SftW meditation this week, which is taken from Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians 4:8 (mentioned above), which urges everyone who follow Christ to hold on to whatever is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy for a person to live a life that is productive, beneficial, rewarding, and that has eternal value in a masked world that is filled with full of false hopes and promises. From this we can understand that it is each person’s responsibility [especially those who faithfully follow Christ] to choose the best of all available choices for their life from the untold number of options that are easily accessible for one to choose. Everyone, especially a faithful follower of Christ, needs to know that the choices they make in their life affects everything that is connected with their life – their relationship with God [the Creator, sustainer, redeemer, and savior of their life]; their relationship with fellow human being [who could be one of our family member or a friend or a stranger or anyone as such]; their relationship with rest of God’s creation; and so on. It is an undeniable fact that one’s present choices determines the success or failure of their future life and it could affect positively or negatively the generations that follow them. The good and productive choices one makes in life today could brighten up their life in the future and bring blessings to themselves as well as those generations who live after them. Similarly, a bad and unproductive choice one makes today could bring difficulties and problems and miseries in their life ahead and bring unfavorable impacts on the following generation/s.

It is an undeniable fact that we live in a society where there are untold number of choices available to choose from. Most of the things that are available in the market today have several variants of their own – we might come across confusingly numerous options to choose from – whether it is food or goods. In fact, the lifestyle itself of the present generation of people is different from that of the former generations. For instance, a couple decades ago if someone [especially the non-vegetarians] go to a restaurant to eat, they just order some non-veg dishes like chicken dish like chicken curry or chicken roast or chicken fry or some fish curry or fish fry or a similar items along with their main meals. However, today if we want to order a chicken related items [or any similar vegetarian or non-vegetarian items], there are numerous options to choose from, such as normal chicken curry, Butter chicken, Chicken Masala, Chicken korma, tandoori chicken, chicken tandoori smokey style, chicken 65, dragon chicken, instant pot masala chicken, chicken vindaloo, Madras chicken curyy, Kerala chicken curry, chicken chettinadu, Chicken Kolhapuri, Schezan chicken, Garlic chicken, chicken seekh kabab, Malai chicken, Kadai chicken, Chicken jalfrezi restaurant style, Chilli chicken, chicken tikka masala, palak chicken, and, as the list goes on and on; which in fact, confuse the customer and, finally, they order something and return home dissatisfied. Similarly, in the past, if we want to have a home-made Cadbury Bournvita Chocolate Nutrition Drink, we go to a grocery store and tell the shopkeeper that we need a Bournvita (or any other similar drink mix) and they just give us a container of Bournvita and we take it home and make the Bournvita drink for the entire family from the same Bournvita container, but in these days there are confusingly so many variants and varieties of Bournvita available in the market, such as Bournvita with classic taste, Bournvita for women, Bournvita for children, Bournvita for lil champions, Bournvita 5Star magic, Bournvita for inner strength, Bournvita for everyday strength, Bournvita with pro-health vitamins, Bournvita that scientifically designed, and so on. Such is the case with almost everything [edible or non-edible goods] that is available in today’s market. Another thing to highlight in connection with this is that in the past people very rarely went out just for eating purpose. However, when they go out for some reasons, they might eat at a restaurant or hotel if it is their meal time. But, today’s situation is different, people even go out just for eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. During my childhood years, our kitchens would become active around Five in the morning and will continue to be active at least until Nine in the evening with short breaks in between breakfast and lunch and lunch and dinner because each mealtime food has to be prepared and served for the entire household, including extended families, and even for guests and visitors.

So, one needs to be careful in choosing the right thing at the right time to be benefitted out of what they choose. In a nutshell, what we are trying to say here is that there are so many variants and options of things available for one to choose from, but each person needs to be very careful in choosing just the right thing for them in life from all the tempting variants and options that are available in the market because whatever they choose would determine the direction of their remaining life. Therefore, whatever one chooses will benefit themselves as well as the generations that follow them. As it is written in the Scripture, in these last days, many are working towards for personal benefits and leading a self-centered life not knowing the terrible things are about to happen. Apostle Paul, knowing that we are living in the last days, wrote: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:1-5). As Apostle Paul was urging the believers in Philippi (Philippians 4:8), let us consider choosing the true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy things in life that would bring glory and honor and praise to the Lord God Almighty through Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior and benefit ourselves and the generations that follow us. As the faithful followers of Christ Jesus, it is our call to choose the right things in our lives and strive hard towards fulfilling God’s purpose in and through our life as we are living in the last days as Christ’s return is about to happen. Let us pray to God to reveal His ways to us and guide us to choose the right things in our lives, as king David prayed: Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long (Psalm 25:4-5). May the Lord God Almighty bless us all! Amen!