I enjoy the quiet of the early morning hours. I sit in my chair, sip my coffee, and I reflect on God’s Word.

This morning, my thoughts have focused on the many decisions, some delightful and others rather dismal, that dot the pages of Scripture. One of the first to be made, was the decision of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; another was the misstep of the Israelites that resulted in a 40 year march through the wilderness; and, one more of the many was the challenge of Joshua: “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . (Joshua 24:15).”

My real focus, however, is not the decisions themselves, but the word itself—the word “decide.” Decide is de-cide. We find “de” on words like de-ice and de-frost, and think of the “de” as meaning something like “off.”

The curious part of the word is the four letter syllable “cide.” It appears in words like homicide, suicide, and infanticide. These words speak of the death of a human by one means or another. Then there are the chemically related death words such as herbicide and pesticide.

So, I ask myself: “How can decide be related to these other cides?” Even though Latin is a “dead” language, it still gives life to our understanding of the English.
Cide come from a Latin root which means “cut” or “kill.” The idea is that when we decide to do something, we are “killing off” all possibilities except for one.

When Joshua called on the Israelites to “choose,” he was saying: “It is time to decide on which side you’ll abide.” They could either stay where they were and live like their forefathers or they could decide to follow Joshua and serve the Lord.

When Paul wrote to the Colossians, he challenged them to decide to: “Seek what is above . . . Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth.”

What kind of a CIDER are you? Have you decided to seek the things above or are you satisfied where you are in your spiritual journey?