When you walk into our house you see a framed piece of calligraphy. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve,” it starts in King James English. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

It’s a couple of sentences from a longer speech by Joshua. Near the end of his life, in the last speech he makes to Israel, he invites the people to renew their commitment to God. “You gotta serve somebody,” as Bob Dylan once sang. You can worship the gods of the Egyptians, Joshua says. You can worship the gods of the people who used to live here in Canaan.

But, says Joshua, my family is going to serve the Lord, the one who brought us from Egypt into this land.

The sign hangs on our wall, a wedding present from 27 years ago. The largest print on it is the house part. But as I think about that sign, the word that leaps out right now is “today”. Choose today.

Joshua’s speech was, of course, a final charge. But by including “today”, he offers us a reminder and an opportunity.

The reminder is this: the choice to serve God is a daily choice.

The opportunity is this: the choice to serve God is a daily choice.

Today, Wednesday, November 10, we are looking at a choice. Regardless of what happened yesterday, today we can choose to follow Jesus. Today we can say, “Where is that path again?” We can say, “I’m sorry. I thought I could fix it.” We can love someone, we can be still and listen for the quiet voice of God, we can throw our passion into healing, into caring, into offering hope and home. We can, once more, plunge into loving God and loving others.

Today we can do that.