Called to a New NormalIhe Atụ

Who Will You Choose to Serve?

Joshua lived to see God do extraordinary things in his life and the lives of the people he loved. He occupied the land and saw the walls of Jericho fall. He saw God do the impossible over and over again. In a remarkable final address he distilled the wisdom of an undomesticated life full of conquest and battles down to a simple, clear, final challenge. In short, he threw down the gauntlet. 

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” -Joshua 24:14–15, ESV. 

Joshua and Caleb’s generation lived to see the faithfulness of God, and they assure us that God will continue to fulfill His promises and honor His word. But we don’t choose to serve God in a vacuum. To serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob always puts us in immediate conflict with other gods, with other “principalities” and “powers” in the language of the apostle Paul. (Eph. 6:12.) We cannot serve God and also serve the lesser gods that compete for our love and loyalty (Matt. 6:24). We will have to make a decision. You will have to make a decision; no one else can make it for you.  

Joshua’s choice—the choice he made as a young man and reaffirmed every day of his life—was the same choice he actively made all over again knowing his life was nearly over. Joshua was saying, “I don’t know what y’all are going to do, but I’m going to tell you right now what my family and I are going to do: we are going to the serve the Lord!” 

Everybody comes to the moment when they must decide if they will take their place in the ongoing story of God and His people and enter the new normal. But Joshua wisely understood that his story was part of a broader story, a story of a people. His story had real implications for the real lives of people around him—his family, friends, and community. And there is a very real way in which men and women of God have to acknowledge how deeply connected our lives are, and yes, take responsibility for the stories of others. We cannot ultimately control the choices of the people around us. But whether we choose to live faithfully will profoundly affect the shape and character of their journeys. 

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” (Eph. 6:12, ESV).