Will You Make the Right Choice?
We are always pulled to make a choice.
Bill Wallace was born in 1908 in Tennessee. He was the son of a doctor, but he had no interest in medicine. He loved everything mechanical, cars, motorcycles, anything with an engine. It would later become a great advantage for him, but not in the way you’d expect.
At seventeen, while working on a car in the family garage, a nagging question came to him: “What should I do with my life?” Then he corrected himself. That wasn’t the right question. The real question was, “What would God have me do with my life?”
Most people never ask that second question. We ask what we want, what pays well, and what looks good. We’ve been told we can be anything we want to be. But Bill Wallace wasn’t interested in what he wanted. He wanted what God wanted.
On July 5, 1925, he made his decision. He would become a medical missionary to China. He suffered incredible hardships, endured political upheaval, and never lived comfortably. But he gave everything.
Life is filled with choices. Where we eat, where we go, what we do with our weekends. Some choices define our character for decades. A bad choice in high school can change a life forever. But there is only one choice throughout all of time that impacts eternity. Only one that determines not just how we live, but where we spend forever.
In Luke 23:32-49, we find that choice playing out on a hill called Calvary. Two criminals hung on crosses next to Jesus. Both were guilty. Both were dying. Both had the same opportunity. But only one made the right heart decision.
One mocked Him. The other looked at the Savior and said, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus responded with words that still echo across the centuries: “Be assured, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
That’s the whole Gospel in one exchange. A condemned man saw the only One who could forgive his sin-sick heart and take him from death to life. From prison to paradise.
The Bible says, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (Proverbs 4:23). And Jesus Himself warned in Mark 8:36, “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Bill Wallace chose a garage in Tennessee. The thief chose to see His Savior on the cross at Calvary. Both made the same decision to let God have their life.
The question isn’t whether you’ll make a choice today. You will. The question is whether you’ll make the right one.
Keep Looking Up!
May God bless your day.
Related devotionals: What God wants you to do · Matthew 11:28 come to Me · Heaven is our true home
Want more from Pastor Rodney?
If today’s devotional spoke to your heart, my books carry these same themes deeper. Stories of God moving in ordinary lives, scripture for tired pastors and weary parents, and steady reminders that heaven is closer than you think.