“…multitudes in the valley of decision.” Joel 3:14
In the classic novel, Catcher in the Rye, by J.D.Salinger, Wilhelm Stekel is quoted as saying, “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one” Salinger goes on to say later in the book, “I keep picturing all these kids playing some game in this big field of rye…Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around…except me…I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff…I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff…I’d just be the catcher in the rye… I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”
Even when a person is a follower of Yeshua, it is astounding to see how some appear to be drifting through life, whiling away their time, their energy, their talents and their resources, living for their own pleasure, seemingly without a care in the world, nor any goals to be achieved, victories won, milestones passed or any sense of the vastness of eternity. We pass this way but once – rubbing shoulders with thousands upon thousands who are rushing headlong towards an eternity without Yehovah – while we spend our waking hours building sandcastles on the beach of life as the tide advances upon them. Not so the likes of CT Studd, who said “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop, within a yard of hell.” It seems, like “the catcher in the rye”, he saw his life’s commission was to stand where the “multitudes in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:14) were passing.