Life is interesting. I have noticed that the major turning points in my life usually look insignificant. It was a typical fall morning when I was 14 in the 9^th grade. The senior high football coach had assembled the 9^th grade football players, which I was one, in a room to make a decision. He told us since the junior high football season was over, we could dress out and be on the senior high football squad. And then he said, “Now for those of you who play in the band you will have to decide, “Do you want to play football or be a “flute-tooter” because you cannot do both”?

I started playing the trombone in the 5^th grade. I was never exceptionally good, but I enjoyed it. In the 7^th grade I played on the junior high football team where I played offense & defensive lineman. Like the trombone I enjoyed it, but I was not an exceptional athlete. I didn’t recognize the situation at the time, but it was the first of many that would come during my life. Would I go along… succumb to the pressure, or say no? I am thankful my parents did not make decisions for me when I was young.

We think the pressure to be accepted is a new phenomenon, but it’s not. Throughout the Bible there are stories after stories of people making hard decisions. It started with Adam & Eve and continued through today. God is a gentleman. His desire is that we “Choose” Him. In Deuteronomy 30:15-18 Moses presented the choice to the Israelites that is true today. “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.”

Ponder today the words of Joshua 24:15, “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.”