You Get To Choose

Philip Alley tells of a Cherokee teaching involving two “wolves” that are within every person. One is bad, with pride, arrogance and a whole host of wrong attitudes while the other is a good wolf, filled with love, peace and every good thing. The answer to the question “which wolf wins?” is simple. The one that you feed wins. Our world, says Philip, is a constant feed of information, vying for our attention and our resources. By nature, people are impatient and reluctant to wait when something seems to be taking too long. Philip then goes on to speak of “call and response”, a principle on which all things are founded. In the beginning, God spoke and it came to be. God has called us to listening prayer – but the enemy of our souls calls to us too, in many different guises. Taking the example of Jesus when tempted in the wilderness, Phillip advises that the best response to a false call should be silence. Do not enter into dialogue with an enemy. Philip goes on to describe aids to a proper response to God, including meditation, study and solitude before giving 5 keys to measuring our response to God. These include Pausing and reflecting, reviewing and recording, obtaining outside perspective, finding time alone and seeking good examples. As Philip says, we get to choose!