A Choice to Start my Day with God

While even my third grade Sunday school students would tell me, we are always with God, there is still the choice of whether to acknowledge that.  Whether to focus on that.  Whether to make that a vital part of my life.

And, during Lent, I am going to make every effort to spend time each day in full acknowledgment of the importance of my relationship with God.  And what better way to do that than to start my day with God.

I will not make it to mass today, but I look at today's readings from Deuteronomy(30:15-20), Psalm 1, and Luke (9: 22-25).  What is the common focus?

Making a choice.  And making a clear choice.  And being focused on the choice.  A choice to follow the ways that God set down for the Israelites being addressed by Moses and a choice to follow the path set by Jesus.  In Psalms a choice to follow not wicked ways but the way set by God.  I like Psalm 1:3

He is like a tree
planted near streams of water,
that yields its fruit in season;
Its leaves never wither;
whatever he does prospers.

I like the imagery of a tree--tall, strong, and bearing fruit.  But the fruit comes only at the proper time. And it prospers.  For my own life perhaps that is financially.  But more importantly, it is just in being able to be happy with life.  Loving my wife.  Loving my children.  Being supported by wonderful friends.