Compromise

Two months gone into the year and I still can’t figure out how to run with the decisions, or resolutions I made at the beginning of the year. In fact, I have already given up on the resolutions I made as the new year began because it seems so hard to keep it. What do I do? Barely two months into the year, I am wondering what to do with my life. It seems like this year will be like last year. I hope not.
These are some thoughts that run through my mind from time to time and I am pretty sure there is someone reading this today who falls in this dilemma. We spoke a lot in January about making decisions at the start of the year and we established based on the word of God in Deuteronomy 30: 19 that with the many choices placed before us, the best choice to make is to choose life so that you and your descendants will live.

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both you and your descendants may live.”

However, the choice of life comes with a price which is always very complicated to pay. Sometimes we make decisions and are highly convicted that it is the right thing to do but along the way you find yourself falling. This happens in many areas of life. For example, you may have lived a very sexually active life but this time you made a commitment and rededicated your life to God, offering your body as a living sacrifice but not up to few months down the lane, you find yourself in the same temptation again. Indeed, the choice of life comes with a price. The problem is not in making decisions. Of course, we make good and bad decisions every minute. The problem is in maintaining, pursuing and acting in line with the decisions in order to achieve your goals. In pursuing your decision, there are things we have to let go of and things we must do. That is why our next writing series will be based on the theme “COMPROMISE”. Whether we accept or not, there are many things we have had to compromise either positively to gain another thing or negatively and loss something. Either ways, all is called “COMPROMISE”.

The word Compromise means to expediently accept standards that are lower than is desirable.

In the bible, we see many instances of compromise. For example, Adam compromised by eating of the fruit from the forbidden tree which made him fall out with God, Esau compromised his birth right because of hunger and at the end became like a servant to his brother, King Saul began well and with great promise but ended up in self-pity and even consulted a witch rather seeking God’s guidance, King David began well but gave into lust and fell even though he recognized himself and came back to God, Gehazi, the assistant to prophet Elisha who served Elisha for years and fell into the sin of unfaithfulness when he was tempted by the desire for money and collected the financial gift from Naaman, Judas Iscariot who was one of the closest friends to Jesus but fell from grace because he gave in to his fleshy desires. These are a few examples of negative compromise. But there is also positive compromise such as Naaman, the Syrian army commander who had leprosy and had to deep himself in river Jordan, a very dirty river to gain his healing, Ruth, who had to forsake her people by following her mother-in-law Naomi to a foreign land but later on got married to Boaz and is one of the women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus. We can go on and on.

Our focus here is not to condemn anyone who has compromised and fallen into a negative situation but our aim is to help you deal with compromise, be it positive compromise or negative. In subsequent write ups, we will spend time sharing our experiences and learning from the word of God and the biblical narratives on how to deal with compromise, so that we can stay focused on our decisions to achieve our set goals.