As you think back over your life, what's the most important choice you've ever made?

Something that's really changed the trajectory of your life.

Maybe it was connected with a job, or a relationship, or a place to live.

Maybe it seemed like a small choice at the time, saying yes to something or no to something,

but it turned out to be huge, for better or for worse.

Speaking for myself, four years ago, I chose to marry an American.

That was a huge choice.

I mean, can you imagine the frosty silences at the breakfast table every

4th of July? But there's another choice which is in your hands that is much bigger and more

significant than all your other choices put together. And the frightening thing is, even though

this choice will set the entire trajectory of your life,

it's possible that you don't even realize that this choice is in your hands, that you have this

choice to make. And the choice is this. You get to choose what to worship. You see the Hebrew word bama all over the Old Testament and it's

usually translated high place. These high places were elevated parts of the landscape,

sometimes man-made on which altars were placed and worship was carried out.

Although high place doesn't always carry a negative connotation in Scripture,

more often than not, these were places where God's people made sacrifices to idols or false gods.

Sometimes these religious shrines also contained an object such as a stone pillar

or wooden artefacts that were associated with the false god in question. All this was in spite of the

fact that having delivered them from slavery in Egypt, God told his people, you shall have no other gods

before me.

But that was exactly what the Israelites ended up doing.

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