“Choose this day whom you will serve….”
Joshua 24:15 ESV
Choices, choices, choices.
Numerous studies and online resources cite 35,000 as the average number of choices we make daily. Experts estimate we make over 200 food-related choices daily—do I eat it or “do I don’t?”
Ever wonder why a first-timer to Starbucks (yes, a few of that rare breed still exist) seems frozen in time as they stand at the counter pondering their drink order? This statistic may answer that question: Starbucks advertises there are over 87,000 possible drink combinations to consider when placing your order. That’s a crazy number, especially when all you want is a strong caffeine jolt.
The majority of the choices we make are routine and ordinary. That doesn’t mean they aren’t important. It simply means we don’t think about them. It’s a choice we’ve made so many times that it has become our automatic default decision. Choices like when the alarm rings and you automatically hit snooze. The alarm rings again, and you allow yourself one more. That’s the limit. You don’t have to think about it because you made the “snooze” decision long ago.
We all walk around with an internal chart of choices we began building years ago. Coffee: black. Cereal: skim milk. Rain outside: grab the umbrella when you go out. Snowing: warm coat, scarf, gloves, and boots. Hot and sunny: flip-flops, sunscreen. Church: don’t forget your Bible. The list goes on—and on.
You have resolved thousands of choices over the years—predetermined automatic decisions that are quickly called upon when needed. Many of those decisions involved thoughtful consideration at the time, weighing options, and evaluating good versus bad or good versus best.
You made many choices because it felt right or seemed most expedient—little time, consideration, or evaluation went into your choice-making process.
Then there are those many choices that require serious evaluation—careful consideration of all the options. Those choices include college, degree programs, career choices, friends, marriage, children, church, and more. Those choices require wise decision-making because of the life-long impact and consequences.
BAD CHOICES.
At the end of Joshua’s long life of service, first as Moses’ protégé and then as God’s chosen leader for Israel when Moses died, Joshua challenged God’s people to make a choice. He knew their choice would determine their continued success in the land God had given them, or it would lead to failure and destruction.
“And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua 24:15 ESV
Joshua told Israel they had to make a choice. They had to pick which God (or gods) they would serve. Their choice would be the determining factor in all the choices made from that day forward. Their choice would be the filter through which all challenges, situations, circumstances, and trials would run.
If they chose to serve Jehovah God, God’s filter of righteousness, justice, mercy, wisdom, and goodness would shape the decisions made by the newly established nation.
If Israel chose to serve the foreign gods, it would be a filter of self-preservation, evil, greed, anger, condemnation, and injustice that would determine the direction of Israel as a nation and corrupt its people.
At that moment, the people of Israel chose to follow God, but as the book of Judges reports, it was not long after Joshua’s death that the people began to turn away from the One True God to serve gods made by man’s hands. Israel did not remain steadfast in their commitment to follow God.
Israel forgot the miraculous works of God. Israel did not pass on the legacy of God’s truth to the “next generation.” The new generation didn’t know how God had redeemed and rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. They didn’t know how God had provided and cared for Israel during its forty years in the wilderness. They didn’t know how God had miraculously and mightily defeated Israel’s enemies as He brought Israel into the promised land. The new generation was uneducated and unwilling to make good choices regarding following God.
… And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that He had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger.
Judges 2:10-12 ESV
History tells us that Israel had periods of restoration, reclamation, and blessing—periods when God’s truth was the deciding factor for the nation’s choices and decisions.
History also shows that during the times that Israel forgot its God and lived in rebellion, it made horrible choices and decisions that led to defeat and destruction.
OUR CHOICES DEFINE US.
Maybe you have seen this to be true in your life. I have fallen flat every time I have pushed ahead on my own, making choices that had no foundation in God’s will or His truth.
The consequences were painful when my choices were self-pleasing—not God-pleasing, and were choices that fit my agenda – not God’s plan for me. My ill-considered (rebellious) choices have not worked out well for me and often for those around me. Collateral damage is always a possibility of bad decisions.
All our life-altering or seemingly trivial choices must be filtered through God—His truth, will, and plan.
Perhaps you should consider reviewing that internal predetermined choice chart to ensure your automatic choices align with God’s best for you.
I first read these lines written by C. S. Lewis in “Mere Christianity,” and I’m regularly reminded of this truism by a devotional journal that includes this excerpt:
“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature…”
C. S. Lewis “Mere Christianity”
As you consider the present and eternal consequences of your choices, how will you answer Joshua’s challenge? Who do you choose – Jehovah or the gods of this world?
Our choices define us.
“Who, then, are those who fear the LORD? He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.”
Psalm 25:12 NIV