Learning from Our Choices

 

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness.”

—Joshua 24:14a

Every day we make dozens of choices. Some of them turn out well. Others may leave us teetering on the edge of disaster.

As a ten-year-old on a Sunday afternoon, I rode my English bicycle with a boy from another neighborhood to the top of a steep hill. The dirt road stretched out before us. The other boy hoisted his little sister on the handlebars of his bike and rode off down the hill.

I hesitated a moment. I remember thinking, “This is really stupid!” But, nevertheless, I made a choice and started down the hill.

Part way down the hill, the front axle of my bike broke propelling me over the handlebars. I slid 75 feet with only my face in contact with the road.

I woke up as the other boy was yelling for help from a man in a Jeep. He took me to my house where my parents loaded me into their car and whisked me to the hospital.

During fourteen hours of surgery, a plastic surgeon rebuilt my face making reference to a school photo of me that my dad carried in his wallet.

When my pastor came to visit me, he fainted. They would not allow me to look in mirror for many weeks. Obviously, I made a very bad choice.

God often uses our choices to teach us to trust Him and to promote our obedience to His will and His Word.

Joshua outlined an important choice, for the people of Israel, as recorded in Joshua 24:14-15:

Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.

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

Joshua made the wisest choice he would ever make. He decided to serve God. As a result, God used Joshua in an amazingly powerful way.

Perhaps we should learn from Joshua. Perhaps one choice we should make is to serve God. Maybe we will have get rid of some things in our lives once we’ve made that choice.

Making such a choice worked out very well for Joshua. And, I believe that making such a choice will work out well for you and for me.

 

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