Don't Live Life By Default

Most electronic devices come to us with factory settings, usually referred to as the default settings. If you decide to use the device with the original settings, you are using it based on other people’s settings. Sometimes this is fine and at other times, the default settings may not allow the device to operate the exact way you wish it to operate.

We can also live life by default, going along with the way things happen rather than taking control of our lives. Many people do this, content to let the winds of life direct them wherever they may blow. Such people allow their choices to be made for them and they do little to direct the way they are headed. By their inaction, they are making a choice- a default choice- to allow their lives to be governed by the forces of this world. However, we have a choice, and we can have control over our destinies.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (KJV)

Israel had a choice to make, and so do we. Each day, we are faced with the choice to just go along with whatever comes our way or to take charge over our lives and use the authority God has given us to direct our lives. Every person is born in the image of the first Adam- a sinner. When we got saved, we chose to reject the default settings of “sinner” and “child of satan,” and we chose to go God’s way. That is how we must live each day of our lives. We have to actively pursue the things of God and not permit life to just “happen.”

We do this by speaking God’s Word, and by making decisions based on the Bible. The lives we have today are the result of the choices we made, the words we spoke, and the actions we took in the past. We can shape our futures, but we have to be engaged to do so. Take charge. Don’t live life by default- choose God’s way and actively influence the direction of your life.