PASTORS PERSPECTIVE: CHOOSING OUR DEFINING STORIES.
By: Ron Woodrum
SCRIPTURE: JOSHUA 24:15 “Choose you this day whom ye will serve…as for me and my house we will serve the LORD”.
A popular game show reaches a climax when the emcee asks the contestant-“Is that your answer? Your final answer?” The moment of truth has arrived! No more time for consideration. No more time for contemplation. No more time to mull things over any longer! It’s crunch time! You can’t hesitate any longer. You must choose. Even to refuse to answer is an answer-you lose! We call that “a moment of decision”-“a crossroad of choice”. Webster defines a “crossroad” first as, “a place of intersection of two or more roads”, and then as, “a crucial point esp. where a decision must be made”. I believe that Christians, people in general, and Churches today are all at a crossroad. We face a crossroad of decision. God has brought us to this point and led us to this intersection. A choice is before us. Which way should we go? Which way will we go? The choice is ours. The consequences are not!
Daniel Taylor calls this our opportunity to write our own next chapter. “Freedom is useless if we don’t exercise it as characters making choices…we are free to change the stories by which we live. Because we are genuine characters, and not mere puppets, we can choose our defining stories. We are co-authors as well as characters. Few things are as encouraging as the realization that things can be different and that we have a role in making them so!” Yet we hesitate. Mark Twain wrote, “It is by the goodness of God, that in the West, we have three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, (choice), and the prudence NEVER TO PRACTICE EITHER OF THEM!”.
Two crossroads on decision stand out in the Old Testament. Once when Joshua stood before the Children of Israel, on the border of the Promised Land. Egypt and slavery lay behind them. The glory and the beauty of Canaan before them. A failed and fallen generation had passed and was now buried. It was a place of crossroad. It was crunch time. It was time to choose. They would either-REPEAT THE FAILURE OF THE LAST GENERATION, OR REALIZE THE FULFILLMENT OF THE NEW GENERATION. Joshua called them to “choose”. The Hebrew word for choose is “bachar”. It means “a carefully thought out choice or resolution”. Joshua did not want any shallow decisions. He challenged them to consider and choose. Charles Spurgeon warned about quick and shallow decisions, “those who are quick to promise are slow to perform. They promise mountains, they perform molehills! He who gives you fair words, and nothing more, feeds you with an empty spoon. People don’t think much of a man’s faith, when his promises are like pie-crust, made and quickly broken!”. Joshua demanded more. In Joshua 24:15 he says, “choose you this day whom you will serve.” You cannot serve the Lord, your self, other gods. You can’t travel both roads simultaneously. It is one or the other. His choice was not a question mark. It was an exclamation point”. He declared, “As for me and my house we WILL SERVE THE LORD!”
A second Old Testament crossroad is located in I Kings 18. It was the days of Jezebel and Ahab. That evil duo had led the people of God into the wicked worship of Baal. Elijah confronted the royal couple and the people of God. In I Kings 18:21 he asks them, “how long will you halt between two opinions?” He dragged them to a crossroad. The word halt is the Hebrew word-“pashah” which means “to limp, as a cripple”. It was used of crippled Mephibosheth in II Sam. 4:4. Elijah asked them “how long will you limp and cripple along in your walk with God. One moment limping along with God, the next limping backward into the evil worship of Baal.” He demanded, “If God is God, follow Him!” That Hebrew word follow, “ahor” means “turn your back on all else, and pursue Him”. To choose means one road to walk. You turn your back on all others. We too face that choice, that crossroad. Which one will we turn our back to? Our futile pursuit of an empty life, or turn our back to God? The great Russian novelist, Dostoyevsky, author of Crime and Punishment, and other great works, wrote, “Beauty is not only a terrible thing, it is a mysterious thing. There God, and the Devil strive for mastery, the battleground is the hearts of men!” To choose to serve God is a choice of beauty. The other choice, not so good! During the Civil War there was a soldier who was torn between two opinions. He couldn’t decide where to cast his lot…where to deposit his loyalty. He choose both. He wore a confederate shirt, and union trousers! The result? HE WAS SHOT AT BY BOTH SIDES!!! Indecision on our part, straddling the fence, limping between two opinions, for us will be JUST AS FUTILE! OR SHOULD I SAY, JUST AS FATAL? Is that your answer? Your final answer? “We make our choices, and then they make us!”. A truer statement was never made!!!