Can anyone live without serving any god?

In the last chapter of the book of Joshua, there is a famous line spoken by Joshua: "If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

When we come to the Gospels, things become a little more clear. One of the verses that Jesus is seen saying is: "You cannot serve both God and mammon."

Mammon is the god of worldly wealth.

Everyone has dedicated their hearts somewhere. Those who have not dedicated themselves to God have dedicated themselves to someone or somewhere else.

In the life of Francis of Assisi, at the beginning of his conversion, there was such a question that God asked him in a vision. In the middle of the night Francis woke up, hearing his name being called out. "Francis, which is better, to serve the master or the servant?" was the question a voice was asking.

He didn't have to think much. The answer came immediately.

"The master."

"Then why are you going to serve the servant?"

The Pope was also the emperor at that time. After having enlisted himself in the Pope's army, Francis was on his way to a battlefield.

There is no doubt about who the Master was. But who, or what, was the 'servant'?

Was the "servant" in the voice, the Pope?

Going to war would give him fame and worth in society. Although Francis's father had made a lot of money through trade and had grown up to be a "new-money' man - he was still from a merchant family. People who belonged to the nobility only had dignity and value in society.

But if he went to war and they won the war, each one would receive the title of a knight!

So, was it the title of knighthood that Francis was looking for - the 'servant' that God was speaking about?

Or was it his inferiority complex that prompted him to seek for it, in the first place?

Or was it the worldliness that underpinned all this?

In any case, he renounced all these, determined to serve the Master.

Everyone makes a choice. If you have not chosen God, you have certainly chosen something else.

That one choice is what matters.

Yes.

"Only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the one thing"!