Book of Joel
Do you have a hard time making decisions? One of the longest decisions ever made was by a guy named Octavio Guillen of Mexico City. According to The Guinness Book of Records he became engaged to Adriana Martinez in 1902. He kept putting the wedding off for 67 years! When they were finally married in 1969 they were both 82 years old. Now that is a guy who struggled with decision making.
We are all decision makers. It is estimated that we make 70 decisions every day. Over a year this adds up to over 25,000 decisions. And over the course of a lifetime it adds up to millions. The decisions we make determine the lives we live and the people we become. So they're huge, and they just keep coming.
In our reading today in Joel the nation of Israel had been overrun by locusts. These locusts were a severe mercy sent from God to open their eyes to the decision they needed to make to return to him. The image is really striking in chapter three, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision."
God was forcing the nation to decide who they were going to follow. That is the ultimate decision in all of life. Who are you going to commit your life to? Are we committed to our agendas or God's agenda?
This decision of who is going to be "god" in our lives is the most important decision of the 70 we will make today. This Advent season we must all choose between "commotion" or "devotion." Advent calls us to nobler decisions than getting the presents wrapped and the tree decorated. The most important decision is to have wholehearted, unreserved, all-in, fully-committed, wholly-surrendered devotion to God. I know this is really countercultural, but it is the most important decision of the day.
So use this day of Advent to choose to draw closer to the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment