One morning you wake up, totally unaware that today you will make a decision that will define your life for years to come, perhaps forever. If you had known this moment was approaching, you would have prepared for it. But you didn’t.

Each of us will experience moments that are far more important than all the others. In these moments we will say or do something because such behavior has become second nature to us. But the consequences will be drastically different.

Senator Dan Coates said, “Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life, or even a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self-defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character" (Reader’s Digest, June 1996).

Our character is the scene of great battles. In the last analysis, it will nudge us in one direction or another. Fortunately, we can learn from those who have gone before us. The Bible is full of defining moments, both good and bad. Real people in real-life situations, just like us. From their examples we can learn how to prepare for our own defining moments.

Are you ready? In the following pages you will meet two people from the Bible who weren’t ready for their defining moment. And you will see the terrible tragedy that ensued. (For examples of people who were ready and made good choices, see the book from which this excerpt was derived.)

Most of us embrace wise principles for living as well as habits that are unwise. These two are in constant conflict within us, each vying for privileged status. In that pivotal moment, we will choose between the two, and our lot will be irretrievably cast.

In Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis wrote, “Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature; either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself.”