Pick Up Sticks

Se*lah, September 27, 2009

 

in search of sticks. 

After Judas betrayed Jesus and suffered death, the apostles had to decide who would become one of the twelve. They didn’t know how to decide of all the many that could have been apostles, who could be an apostle. They resolved to drawing straws, or sticks. Whoever’s stick was drawn won, and it ended up being Matthais’s stick, but that wasn’t why we heard the story. By drawing the sticks, they left it to God to decide. It’s important for us to include this in our every day lives. Too much of the time, we feel the need to be in control of everything. We feel pressured to make decisions based on opinions and approval of others, when really, it’s not always wise for us to make the decisions ourselves. We need God’s help, and so tonight we realized that by drawing sticks, we’re letting God make the decision. When there’s nothing more we can do for a situation, we should let God have control. Now, that doesn’t mean taking the “easy way out”, or not deciding anything at all- if He didn’t want us to think for ourselves, he wouldn’t have given us minds. There’s a fine line between faith and common sense, and we should use our common sense to the best of our ability, because God gave us that gift. However, we realized that we can’t do this alone. We cannot live this life alone. So tonight, we’re leaving all of our lost causes in God’s hands.