Decisions, Decisions...

Anyone that knows me well knows I love taking pictures and videos. I love capturing memories of all the best, and sometimes the more simple moments of all life. I have tons of pictures of my youth group, my family, and most especially of me and my girfriend together. I love going back and looking at those pictures and reminiscing of all the good, funny, or just straight up joyful moments. But today I had to do something I didn't want to do. See, my older sister and I share storage plan for iCloud. Turns out I was using just at 3/4 of the storage, while my sister was using just under 1/4 of the storage. To allow her to continue adding necessary things to her account I had to get rid of lots of stuff, including pictures and videos. Not my first decision, but a necessary one. Thankfully, I discovered that the main problem was my computer had made double copies of some of the photos and files on my phone, so all I had to do was delete some of those copies. But I still had lots of excess photos and files that needed to be deleted. As I scrolled through photos and videos on my computer and phone looking for ways to avoid having to get rid of them, I realized there was no point. Photos and videos took up more storage on my phone than any other thing. So I decided to go down through my photos and videos from the start and delete as many that seemed reasonable enough to delete. The best way to do this was fast and to not think about it. As I did this I understood a truth that I hadn't ever truly understood on an experiential level before. Sometimes if we wait too long to make a decision for, a decision will never be made. It's easy to sit wondering if you should or shouldn't do something. But often when we do that we lose valuable time. I had to go through and delete pictures and videos quickly and not think about it too much, because my photo-loving nature will get me thinking that a certain picture or video is worth keeping. The funny thing is, a lot of those pictures that I wanted to keep wouldn't cross my eye again for long time, and even then it would just be for a short moment. It's easy to get tempted into keeping something, or doing something that doesn't matter, just because we can't come to a decision. No decision is a decision. Most of the time when we get caught up trying to make a decision it's because we know what's best and necessary, and a lot of times right, but our feelings get in the way. it's a fight between our feelings and our faith, or maybe I should word it as a fight between our feelings and truth. I felt like keeping those pictures, but I also knew that a lot of them weren't worth keeping. They may have been pictures of some students that I don't associate with much anymore, or just a goofy pic that I'll forget about anyway, but my feelings said I should keep them. Truth, however, declared that getting rid of these pictures that are of no use for even so much as a memory was the necessary to ensure I can keep adding pictures and videos that do matter later on. Our faith in Jesus is based on truth, not our own feelings. 2 Corinthians 5:7 states "for we walk by faith, not by sight." I believe sight in many circumstances could also relate to feelings. Our feelings tend to be based on what we see, our own thoughts, our personal opinions, our ideas and attitudes. They are based on our human nature. Faith is based on the nature of God and the reality that many of the things he does can't be understood, or "seen" with our eyes. But we know they are true. If we continue to talk by sight or feelings, but want to serve God we will always question whether we are going to be making the right decision too long to even make one. Sometimes we believe the Lord may be speaking, but because we don't want to do what he is saying we are quick to question whether it's even God, or if it's even worth it. Times like that are when it's good to make then quick decision to do what you hear in your Spirit. We don't often sit back and question whether it's God speaking when we feel like jumping up and reacting to a football game, or when we feel like going to buy some lunch at Subway. Why is that? Because, for the most part, we know that those are just natural thoughts and behaviors in life. So when we have a thought that we don't believe is ours why are we so quick to question it? That's why I believe it's best in those moments to quickly decide you are going to do when you hear the Lord prompt you in your Spirit to do something. If some decisions are not made quickly, no decision will be made at all. And I learned that deleting photos and videos. Surely we can decide to do what the Lord says almost as soon as he says it. It would certainly save us some time, but it would also keep us from disobedience.