As for me and my house
Joshua at Shechem
He is old now, the conqueror whose hands once held the trumpets at Jericho, and he has called the whole nation to Shechem to say goodbye. Joshua does not flatter them. He lays the matter down as plainly as a road that forks in two directions and makes you stop the cart and pick one. You will serve something, he tells them; that is not in question. The only question is what. The gods your fathers worshiped across the river, or the gods of this land you now live in, or the LORD who carried you out of Egypt. Choose this day. And then, before they can answer, he plants his own flag in the ground for all of them to see: as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. It is not said as a mood that has drifted over him. It is a decision, made with open eyes, that he intends to keep making. Reorientation, it turns out, is less a feeling that settles on you than a choice you take up on purpose, and then take up again each morning the old gods come whispering their offers.
“Choose this day whom you will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
— Joshua, at Shechem — Joshua 24:15 (WEB)
“I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants.”
Reorientation is not drifted into; it is decided. Watch the old conqueror at Shechem refuse to let the nation sleepwalk into faith. He sets the fork plainly before them and plants his own flag without waiting. This phase asks the same of you: not a vague spiritual drift, but a deliberate, eyes-open choosing of whom you will serve, taken up on purpose and renewed each day the old offers return.
The faith you inherited could idle along unchosen, running on autopilot for years. That is not anxious striving but its opposite. Your rebuilt faith will not coast the way the inherited version seemed to. The faith you absorbed as a child could run on autopilot for years; this one cannot, and that is not a defect but the shape of the new season. It has to be chosen, deliberately, with your eyes open, and then chosen again. Hear the difference, though, between Joshua's choosing and the anxious striving of the life you left. This is not white-knuckling your way into God's favor, not earning a place by sheer resolve. It is the freedom of a settled matter.
A person who has decided whom they serve does not relitigate it every time temptation knocks; they simply remember the flag already planted and walk on. So plant the flag Joshua planted: in this new season, you will serve the LORD. Then keep planting it each morning the old gods come whispering their familiar offers, and let the deciding be your freedom, not your burden, the steadying ground under a faith that is finally your own. The old gods will keep making offers, repackaged for the new season, and the answer is the same plain decision Joshua made for himself and his household. You will serve something. So choose, today, with open eyes, whom.
The wider Church can coast for generations on inherited, unchosen religion, until a whole culture simply drifts away, never having decided anything. Shechem is the cure. As the recurring rummage sale Phyllis Tickle traced clears away what was merely absorbed, the Body is pressed to do what Joshua did before a watching world: name the rival loyalties honestly rather than assume everyone has chosen, and call its people to a real, eyes-open decision. Across the centuries the traditions that endured were the ones that kept asking each generation to choose afresh, not the ones that presumed. What is only handed down dissolves under pressure. What the whole Church genuinely chooses, and re-chooses, holds.
Moods lift and inheritances fade, but a decision made before God has a spine that weather cannot bend. What cannot be shaken here is the dignity He gives you of a real choice, and His own unwavering faithfulness to the household that chooses Him: a LORD who keeps covenant on His side long after the trumpets at Jericho have gone silent.
- Have I actually decided whom I will serve in this new season, or am I drifting on a faith I never consciously chose?
- Which old gods, repackaged, still come whispering their offers to me, and what would naming them honestly change?
- Where have I mistaken the freedom of a settled decision for the anxious striving I thought I had left behind?
Lord, I have drifted long enough on a faith I never quite decided. Today I plant the flag: as for me and my house, we will serve You. When the old gods come whispering tomorrow, remind me of this morning. Let the deciding be my freedom and not my burden, and keep my household, by Your faithfulness, in the choice we have made. Amen.