“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…. But as for me
and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15, NKJV).

Life is about choices, whether on a grand scale—whom to marry, how to vote for your country’s leaders, what profession to pursue—or seemingly insignificant ones—what to have for breakfast, what to wear today, which direction to go on our daily walk. All impact us—and others—to one degree or another.
And that’s one of the key points to remember when making these choices: We do not live in a vacuum; our choices, which dictate our actions and their results, affect others. Most often, those closest to us feel the impact more than anyone else. Those we claim to love may very well be the ones most blessed by our wise choices…and most harmed by our poor ones.
That’s a lot of responsibility, isn’t it? Particularly for such fragile, faulty beings as ourselves. And yet God freely gives us the right to make those choices—and to experiences the resulting consequences.
In the Book of Joshua, we see where the Israelites were called upon to choose between the false gods of other nations and the one true God who had faithfully led them out of slavery in Egypt. Should have been a no-brainer, right? But if you’ve read the rest of the story, you know that not only a handful but many of the Israelites turned away from God and instead chose to follow and worship false idols. The results were not pretty.
What about us? Do we make wise choices, based on the Word of God? Do we stay focused on the One who has saved and delivered us from slavery to this world, following hard after Him, regardless of trials or hardships along the way? Or do we choose to be sidetracked by the false idols of this world—success, fame, fortune, popularity—and turn aside to worship and pursue them?
Remember, many people—including those closest to us—are watching to see what choices we will make. May we choose wisely and worship accordingly so the consequences of our choices will be a blessing and not a curse to ourselves and others.