It's never simple. As the young, it is simply whether or not we want chocolate or vanilla. We belabor the point, ice-breathed dairy melting in front of us while we beg for another moment to select our desserts.
Eventually, time travels. Our choices turn to which young lady we will ask to the dance--once again belaboring the point. Pros, cons, lists, and focus groups among friends commence until we finally resort to our middle-school days and drop our sweetheart a note, asking them to "check yes if you like me."
The list continues.
Secondary education, spouse, job, location, and which tie to wear to your father's funeral.
Then it's all over. Mouth gasps, eyes close, and the last choice in your life no longer lies in your hands, as family selects your final resting place.
Yet how many times do we reach pivotal moments without recognizing them as such? Who is to say whether or not, on a certain night, one might find himself sitting at a desk, realizing that life has been passing by without a second glance? Or who is to say that a sudden tide of regret will not rush in and crash its breakers over an individual when they least expect it, hurling them into a moment of decision?
Perhaps this is part of what makes the mundane holy. Because, at any moment, one may find himself swept from the shores of normalcy into the strange and rough current of the unexpected, forced into a pivotal decision while on one's knees before the Almighty.
Complacency sets in when suddenly, I realize where I am--and I hate it. It is far too often that I find myself, like Hosea's unfaithful wife, prostituting myself to my own idolatrous fancies, while my Savior stands with arms open. As Christian apologist and author C.S. Lewis wrote:
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
I fear that I love the gifts far more than I love the Father. I take the good and twist it, use it for my own advantage, and spit in the face of the Giver exclaiming "Give me more!" Those terrestrial pleasures, stolen gifts of God set as idols, own my heart more than I'd care to admit.
How can this result in anything but heart-wrenching terror? For we must "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him." It is in this time--this painful, yet imperative acknowledgement--that a pivotal decision must be made.
A secondary salvific moment? Nay. A re-dedication, even? Of sorts.
Perhaps moreso a realization that, truly, I am dead.
The decision to carry our crucifix is one made daily. Each day, we die to ourselves and remind ourselves that we are clothed in Christ's righteousness--dead to sin and alive in Him. We must be immersed in a desire for the gospel, preaching it to ourselves daily. What did Jesus say, but "Blessed are they who hunger & thirst for righteousness."
Our pivotal moment, then, comes in our choice to continually lose ourselves in the gospel.
