Week 5 Tuesday

Decisions, Decisions

Today’s scripture selection: Joshua 21-24

Key verses: Joshua 24:15

I love the internet.  I don’t always believe what it has to say – but I love it just the same.  I love to “Google” things and see what I can learn.  Well here’s a little statistic worth pondering.  If it’s true, it really makes you think:

According to one researcher, the average person will make 773,618 decisions in his or her lifetime and will come to regret 143,262 of them.  I don’t how researchers manage to come up with a statistic like that – but I didn’t do all that well in my statistics class in college.  At any rate, it makes you think doesn’t it?

We all have so many decisions to make, day in and day out.  Some of them are relatively minor – like what to eat for breakfast.  Some are more important, but in the grand scheme of things, only of relative significance.  Some decisions, though, are life-changing – forever.

That’s the kind of decision Joshua was talking about when, as an old man, he spoke to the people he had led for so many years.  This valiant leader; this faithful man of God told them they had to decide, once and for all, whom they would follow.  Would they follow the God who had brought their ancestors out of bondage, protecting them ever since – or would they follow some other false gods?  He left it for them to decide.  But he said,

“. . . as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

It was just that simple.  It had been decided long ago, and now, at the end of his life, nothing would change his mind.  His destiny was secure – it was done.

I encourage you, with all the decisions you have to make every waking hour of your life, to settle this one, once and for all.  Life will sometimes be rich and full; sometimes it will be harder than you can imagine.  But if you make that one decision – to follow the one true God – all the other decisions will come a whole lot easier.

“As for me and my household – we will serve the Lord.”