Now Choose Life…

Notes from a dad on fully living your journey

Bill Jewell

Table of Contents

1. Preparing the Way ....................................................................1

2. On Being a Man........................................................................5

3. On Fighting Like a Man ..........................................................9

4. On Independence...................................................................13

5. On Learning to Pray...............................................................17

6. More On Prayer......................................................................21

7. On Perseverance.....................................................................25

8. Feeding on the Word .............................................................29

9. On Being Selfless....................................................................35

10. On Dealing With Guilt ..........................................................39

11. On Taking a Stand..................................................................43

12. On Resolve ..............................................................................47

13. On Guarding Your Name.....................................................51

14. The Subtle Lie .........................................................................55

15. On Dealing With Girls ..........................................................59

16. Resolve and Respect...............................................................63

17. More On Reading Scripture..................................................67

18. On Writing the Word.............................................................71

19. On Valiant Men and Touched Hearts.................................75

20. On Temptation....................................................................... 79

21. On Rebellion........................................................................... 85

22. On Being Chaste .................................................................... 91

23. On Using Discretion ............................................................. 97

24. On Fighting Fear..................................................................103

25. On Being Abandoned ......................................................... 107

26. On Finding Forgiveness...................................................... 111

27. Finishing Well....................................................................... 115

Afterword ........................................................................................... 121

A. On Fighting Like a Lady ..................................................... 123

B. On the Beauty of a Lady, part 1......................................... 127

C. On the Beauty of a Lady, part 2......................................... 131

Scripture Index................................................................................... 137

1

Preparing the Way

Proverbs 1-3

Someday soon, much sooner than I wish, you will hear my

advice in your memory and not in your ear.

I know, as you soon will know, that these days are all too

short. That is what gives birth to my urgency. I know I can be

overbearing, and I know that sometimes I keep talking long after the

point has been made. I hope that you can see through this; and I

hope that you can see that my words, though not perfect, come to

you from a heart that is stretched out for you. In the mornings and

evenings when sleep eludes me, I lie on my bed and pray for you; my

days are punctuated with prayer for you. I hope you can sense, if you

cannot see, that my minutes are filled with the longing that you

follow the Lord in all of His ways.

At least 15 times in the first 7 chapters of Proverbs, Solomon

says “My son, listen to my instruction.” What changes the whole

complexion of what he says are the two words “My son.” There is so

Preparing the Way

2

much of a wrung-out heart in those words that I don’t know that

you can understand it until you have your own child. After all of the

advice and instruction is given, for a father there is the awful reality

that his child can refuse or ignore the advice. And what a father fears

is the sorrow and heartache that comes to his child when good

instruction is forgotten.

A father hopes that somehow when he says, “My son, lis-

ten,” that all of the dreams and fears and concern and love that he

has for his son will overcome any of the son’s reluctance to hear the

advice. I certainly feel this way for you.

Nothing can break a father’s heart like a child who has gone

astray; but nothing can cause a father’s heart joy like a child who

walks in God’s ways.

Right from the very outset, I want it to be very plain that you

bring great joy to me. I cannot describe how powerfully proud that I

am of you, even though you are a work still in progress. You are still

“being made.” There is, if God so wills, still a long journey ahead.

But you are making steps in the right direction, and I pray strongly

that you do not turn back. One thing is for certain: God will honor a

full-fledged commitment to Him.

Now Choose Life…

3

Later tonight I will stand in your room under cover of dark-

ness, as I have done on other occasions. And I will pray, for I don’t

know what else to do, and I am sure that there is nothing better.

And, oh, what longing wells up inside of me for you to walk in the

ways of God, for you to love Him with all of your heart and mind

and soul and strength. The delight that God brings to the heart of

those that love Him outweighs ten thousand things that Satan

deceptively offers. God has offered you the adventure of living in the

dangerous, but worthwhile, life of faith. And I say, “My son, listen:

walk in all of His ways.”

For many years now you have read the words on your wall

that I hope become the decree of your heart. I copy them here for

your memory, and you will see that I also added two lines to remind

us of how long the commitment is:

The choice has been made,

There’s no looking back,

I’ve stepped over the line,

My focus clear,

My path straight,

Preparing the Way

4

My God reliable,

I won’t let up,

Back up,

Give up,

Or shut up,

Until He comes again,

Or until He calls me home

I’m a disciple of Christ.

Nail it down. Pray it in. Live it out. “Fight the good fight of

the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.”

I am eager to see what God will do in you.

I love you,

Dad

2

On Being a Man

I Cor. 16:13-14; John 10:10; Gen. 1:28

Everything that God has made good Satan tries to corrupt;

and so I thought that I would write a little to you about what it

means to be a man.

As a man, Satan wants to make you either too harsh or too

soft, and he really doesn’t care which. But God wants you to be fully

man, which means that you will need to be ready both to fight and to

weep, and sometimes you will need to be able to do both at the same

time. Paul says, “Be men of courage; be strong.” And then he

follows it up with, “Do everything in love.”

Our culture sometimes tries to tell us men that we are to be

soft, and that what we really need to be is women in men’s bodies.

That’s insane. God made you a man: be one. No man (or woman

either, for that matter) should stumble around, afraid to put one foot

in front of the other. There are things to stand for, and there are

things to stand against: do both. Do not let yourself become an

On Being A Man

6

indecisive noodle-head. Find where right is, and then fight like a

bulldog to hold onto the right. At least ten times in Scripture we are

told to stand firm. You’ll find that we gain the resolve for standing

by spending time with our Lord. As He walked on this earth, He was

challenged by many; but He still steadily did what was right. If we

look to Him, we can find our solidness in His solidness. Nowhere in

Scripture do we find anyone who was able to “softly” stand for

Christ. It is a battle that requires strong resolve. Standing firm is

counter-cultural; but God, in several places, commanded us to

“Stand firm.”

But culture not only gives us weak men, it gives us dead men.

What I mean is that many feel that being strong as a man means that

you never show emotion. Guys sometimes strain to show that they

don’t care about anything (the “whatever” crowd), or if they do care

about something, they only show it in hardness (the “don’t-mess-

with-me” crowd). What sawed-off people they make! They can never

enjoy anything or it destroys their image as a man. One group is too

lazy to enjoy anything; the other group is too cool to enjoy anything.

They have not heard the words of Christ: “I have come so that you

can have life; and so that you can fully enjoy it.” Christ wept, to be

sure; but He also went to parties with sinners and went to weddings

with saints. Masculinity means that we live out fully what God has

Now Choose Life…

7

given us to live. Whether good or bad, we embrace all of it. We are

not afraid to tumble headlong into joy or sorrow, because God has

made us men and has taught us not to fear. We lift the cup of life to

our lips, and we drink everything in the cup. In the process we will

rejoice with those that rejoice, and we will weep with those that

weep, but whether hurting or happy, we will most certainly live.

Your manhood calls you to this, because God has called you

to it. God made the world and man and then He said “Fill the earth

and subdue it.” God made you and He made your world; He intends

for you to enter into the world that He put you in. Don’t be a

bystander. Jim Elliot (the martyred missionary) put it well when he

said, “Wherever you are, be all there…live to the hilt every situation

you believe to be the will of God.”

It is honoring to God for a man to be engaged in the world

around him; it is the first step in subduing the earth.

6

More On Prayer

John 15:5-8; Luke 18:9-14; Rom. 12:3; I Thess. 5:17

I have read two phrases from old time saints that help frame

the need for prayer. Robert Murray McCheyne, who died at the age

of 29, said, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he

is—and no more.” The other was by a lady named Jeanne Guyon:

“If godliness does not rise from deep within you, it is only a mask.”

I know that these phrases are not Scripture; but I think that

they say in other words what Jesus tried to impress upon us.

McCheyne’s quote is alarming; not because it is not true, but because

it is true. How often we like to impress one another with our brains

and our ability and our “spirituality.” But the truth is found in the

place where we pray. For all the puffing up of our egos, for all the

flattery that we are given by people, for all the self-congratulations

we give to ourselves—the place of prayer tells the real tale.

Jesus did say “Without me you can do nothing.” The clear

meaning is that that without praying to Him and seeking His wisdom

More On Prayer

22

and favor, all of our accomplishments are like vapor that appears for

a little while and then vanishes away.

Prayer will guard us in humility. In it we recognize that God

is supreme over everything, and that our lives are dependent on His.

On our knees we understand that every ability that we have comes

from God’s hand, and that it is His good hand that sustains those

abilities. Prayer will keep our souls from being arrogant and haughty,

it will keep our hearts from being harsh, and it will keep our minds

from being petty.

So prayer on the one hand guards against some things; but it

also instills some things. No man, no accomplishment, no knowl-

edge, can ever instill the confidence in you that talking to God, and

knowing that you have talked to Him, will. When you rise up from

your time of prayer, and you know that God has heard you, there is

no fear of anything. You know what you are before God: you know

you are His child, you know that He loves you, you know that He

will not let His children be utterly cast down. No criticism, no

slander, no gossip will be able to sway you from what God has given

you to do: you know what the score is, because like Moses, you have

met God face to face and have found His favor.

Now Choose Life…

23

But Guyon’s phrase is also important: “If godliness does not

rise from deep within you, it is only a mask.” But how will godliness

rise from deep within us? What will keep us from being hypocrites?

What will keep us from being self-righteous Christian peacocks who

only want to show ourselves off to the world? Only prayer--the

heart-bending exercise of prayer. Eugene Peterson calls prayer

having our “souls stand at attention before God.” When we do that,

God makes us real.

The world is full of people who wear godliness as a mask;

they have become skilled at Christian language and Christian behav-

ior, but something is lacking in their souls. Godliness for them is put

on like a coat, an external part of their overall costume. It is a

grotesque representation of Christ, who did not act or play, but was.

Don’t be a fake! Let prayer change you from the inside out;

let God Himself make you real, so much so that godliness rises from

deep within you. It will be His work, and you will be able to lay no

claim to it; but you will be a genuine specimen of grace in a world of

plastic people.

When you are tempted “to think more highly of yourself

than you ought to think,” reflect on your praying. You are no more

More On Prayer

24

than what you are in prayer; and if you are praying as you ought,

then that praying will destroy your arrogance. It will strip off the

mask and allow godliness to arise from deep within you.

“Pray evermore.”