"EENY-MEENY-MINY-MOE"

   Do you remember trying to make a choice when you and a friend each chose a different game to play?  I well recall the phrase so very often  that we said, "eeny-meeny-miny-moe" to make the choice.  Of course, we didn't know the rock, paper, scissors phrase used today among kids.  

I thought today again of choices we make and the consequences of them as I wandered through Genesis 25-26 and read of Issac and his marriage to Rebekah, the birth of two sons, Rebekah's conniving, and Esau "despising his birthright."   Exchanging a birthright which was a blessing from a father is a major choice and made so frivolously for a bowl of stew.   I found David Guzik's comment from Donald Barnhouse on Esau's choice: Why did Esau sell out? “History shows that men prefer illusions to realities, choose time rather than eternity, and the pleasures of sin for a season rather than the joys of God forever. Men will read trash rather than the Word of God, and adhere to a system of priorities that leaves God out of their lives. Multitudes of men spend more time shaving than on their souls; and multitudes of women give more minutes to their makeup than to the life of the eternal spirit. Men still sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.” (Barnhouse) 
  
 I found that I had to restrain myself from any criticism of Esau.  I, too, have chosen the immediate, the press of emotions and what I wanted, rather than eternity in making some choices.  There have been those years that I spent in settling for what I understood as being obedient rather than having an intimate time with the Lord God  being consistently in His Word and a prayer time interceding for others.  Those things were not evil but they were not priority best either.  They were my 'eeny-miny-moe" choices, UGH!  

Holy Spirit, I am trusting You to keep me very alert to my flesh who is too often willing to take seconds because it looks and feels easier, but always has effects that are so disappointing in long-term.  What "eeny-miny-moe" choices have you made that literally have been "the kick in the bootie" or "given a punch to the gut"?   Praise Father God for grace and forgiveness, yet the consequences sometimes are "less than" the best He had purposed.  Forever learning.  In process.  #IHAVETHREESONS.