“But if it seems wrong in your opinion to serve the LORD, then choose today whom you will serve. Choose the gods whom your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But my family and I will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15 CEB
In the book “Halftime” by Bob Buford, the author challenges the reader to make the second half of your life better than the first by changing your priorities from a quest for success to a quest for significance. One important question that Buford challenges the readers of his book, is the question “What is in your box?” His challenge was that if you could only put one word in the box, one thing that describes what drives you, what motivates us, what is significant to you, what would that word be? That one thing should drive what your plans will be, what choices you will make, what is the center of your life.
In this` Scripture from chapter 24 from the prophet Joshua, he asks the Jewish people basically the same question. He gathers all the tribes of Israel, near the end of his life and asks them in essence, “What’s in your box?” But not in those words. He reminds them of how far and long it took them to get to this point and how God has blessed them. He narrates the story of the settlement in the land of Canaan. Then he asks them “Choose this day whom you will serve.” The people respond resoundingly in verse 24, “We will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
Joshua knew the hearts of the people. They were much like ours. He knew how fickle and erratic the people could be. He knew they had more than one thing “in their box.” And they we constantly swinging back and forth among the differing influences that they found themselves immersed in. Joshua framed a challenge to them that is a challenge to us today. Choose this day whom you will serve.