But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve….  But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.  Joshua 24:15

An old Doonesbury cartoon by Gary Trudeau pictured a young man who was being interviewed by the president of an advertising company.  The dialogue went like this:  The executive says, “So you want to be an ad man, eh, son?”  And the young responds, “Well, I think so, sir.  I mean, I can’t be certain, of course, but it seemed worth looking into, you know, to see if it worked out, if it felt right, and … I … uh…”  That’s commitment… or, is it?

Commitment is a word that doesn’t get a lot of coverage today, and when it does, it is often used in jest or humor.  I’m thinking of the cartoon picturing a young man talking to his girlfriend.  He says, “If you ever leave me, I’ll have you committed…”  Being committed to someone and having them commit to you is hardly the same thing.

“Commitment,” according to the dictionary, is the act of giving, or putting something in the trust of another.  In the broader sense, it is the act of pledging or binding yourself to a certain course of action, or to a person as the case my be.

Commitment is what a pilot must have when he sits on a runway and guns his engines.  There is a point at which he has to commit himself to the flight.  He can sit on the runway and gun his engine until it runs out of fuel, but he will never get off the ground until he commits himself to a course of action.

Commitment is what Charles Lindberg had when he flew the Atlantic, the first man who ever to perform such a feat.  Lindberg had taken his map and drew a line at a certain point, a line which he called, “the point of no return,” and when Lindberg crossed that line, no matter what happened, he had made the decision to go on, because it was closer to Europe than to the North American continent.

Commitment is the decision to go forward, to hang in there when the going gets tough, to take one more step when you are convinced all strength is gone.  Commitment is the decision to stand by someone no matter what the temperature of a relationship may be, or the force of the wind that blows against it.

Today, however, the attitudes of the world mitigate against commitment.  “Do your own thing”; “Seek your own fulfillment”; “Find your joy;” “If you don’t love your mate, leave.  You deserve happiness”–all of these attitudes are viruses that destroy commitment.

I am convinced that commitment is an ingredient which we vitally need today, and that commitment involves three important areas of your life: (1) Your marriage; (2) Your career, and (3) Your relationship to God which should come before 1 and 2 because it vitally effects both you marriage and your career by giving a sense of spiritual purpose to life, without which there is often little reason to follow through with any commitment.

An individual who is deeply committed to something today often stands out from the crowd as someone who is different or even a little weird.  He or she is considered something of an anomaly or a throw-back to another generation.  I have news for you, friend.  The individual who is successful, who has a sense of purpose in his life, and who knows where he or she is going, is a person of deep commitment.  Show me a failure, and I’ll show you a person who lacked commitment to his mate, to his job, to himself, and to his God as well.

Commitment has always been part of God’s plan, His way.  As Paul put it, “…be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:58, KJV).

Resource reading: Joshua 1:1-10