Our Twelfth Companion: Joshua
. . . who entered the Promised Land
he LORD your God is providing you a place of rest, and will give you this land.
Joshua 1:13)
We began our pilgrimage with God's word to Abraham: GO FROM! "Go from your country... to a land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1).
We end our journey with His command to Joshua: GO IN!
"Go in to take possession of the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess" (Josh: 1:11).
The journey of the spirit is not a mere sightseeing tour, but the entry procession into our rightful homeland.
Are we living as though we believe this? Or are we like the "shopping-bag lady" in New York City who survived for years on what she could scavenge from garbage cans. When she died, police discovered in her threadbare coat passbooks to bank accounts totaling nearly a quarter of a million dollars. We are heirs to all God's riches in Christ, yet we often live like paupers. We stand within sight of the Promised Land, but we do not enter. Joshua did, because he knew five secrets.
1. Walking on two legs
A one-legged man can't get far; neither can we if we leave either our part or God's part out of our stride. "YOU are to pass over this Jordan, to go in to TAKE possession of the land which the Lord your God GIVES you to possess." Does God give it or do we take it? Both, Joshua would say. It isn't either-or; it's both-and, like the left-right rhythm of a good conquering army. "Be strong and of good courage" (that's our foot forward), "for the Lord your God is with you" (that's His).
2. Divine Timing
"When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, they you shall set out from your place and follow it" (Josh 3:3). The ark, symbol of God's presence, always went ahead of the people of Israel.
Sometimes we get the order reversed and make a premature rush at the Promised Land. Maybe it's a healing that we think should come sooner than it does, or marriage when God still has some growing for us to do. In discouragement we conclude that particular promise just isn't for us: "I'll never get well." "I guess I'm just not meant to be married."
Forty years before the successful invasion under Joshua, the children of Israel, too, made an abortive attack on the Promised Land. "They presumed to go up... although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord, nor Moses, departed out of the camp. Then the Amalekites... came down and defeated them" (Num. 14:44, 45).
3. Passing through water
"When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark... shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be stopped from flowing." Between the children of Israel and the Promised Land lay an impassable barrier, the Jordan River in spring spate.
Ask God what stands between you and full enjoyment of all He has for you. Is it fear of commitment? Of giving something up?
Joshua did not set about constructing a bridge - and our own efforts will not carry us across our Jordan. Instead, Joshua invited God right down into the threatening situation itself.
And when he did, the torrents of doubt and fear were checked. It didn't happen by magic. The temporary cutting off of the Jordan's flow has been observed in modern times, when spring floods undercut cliffs upstream, toppling tons of earth and rock into the river to create a natural dam. When we ask God into our fears and resistances, He involves us in His natural processes of change and transformation.
4. Stones from the riverbed
"Take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder... that this may be a sign among you... in time to come." That's the purpose of the log we've kept throughout our journey. God's marvelous guidance and provision is not to be forgotten when the immediate need is past, but kept before us as "a memorial for ever."
5. The edge of the sword
We're apt to shrink, nowadays, from the grisly details of Joshua's campaign, to find them primitive and bloodthirsty. What, after all, are we to make of God-fearing men who "utterly destroyed both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword"?
Precisely that they wanted God more than they wanted anything else. Reading ourselves into the account means identifying those "men and women, young and old, oxen and sheep" in our own lives. A "manly" refusal to admit need? A "ladylike" distaste for emotional displays? Some "innocent" small pleasure? Whatever it is, if it stands between us and God's promises, He wants it destroyed!
The Choice
Joshua's last words to his people make the perfect summary of our own eventful journey. An old man now, he reviews their long pilgrimage - and ours.
"Thus says the Lord... I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan... and his children went down to Egypt... I brought your fathers out of the Egypt... And you went over the Jordan."
In some or many areas of our lives we are living now in the Promised Land. Where we can relax, right? Not at all, cautions Joshua. The rest that God gives is not a relapse into carelessness. When we stop traveling, when we settle down, Joshua warns, two kinds of false gods will tempt us: "the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River" - old idolatries, outgrown ways of dealing with problems, and "the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell" - the current standards of the world around us.
"Now therefore," Joshua concludes his farewell address, "choose this day whom you will serve." It is a daily matter, in the Promised Land as on the road, this decision to follow the God who has led us out of sorrow into Joy.
Help me each morning, LORD, to affirm with Joshua, "As for me and and my house, we will serve the LORD!"
he LORD your God is providing you a place of rest, and will give you this land.
Joshua 1:13)
We began our pilgrimage with God's word to Abraham: GO FROM! "Go from your country... to a land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1).
We end our journey with His command to Joshua: GO IN!
"Go in to take possession of the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess" (Josh: 1:11).
The journey of the spirit is not a mere sightseeing tour, but the entry procession into our rightful homeland.
Are we living as though we believe this? Or are we like the "shopping-bag lady" in New York City who survived for years on what she could scavenge from garbage cans. When she died, police discovered in her threadbare coat passbooks to bank accounts totaling nearly a quarter of a million dollars. We are heirs to all God's riches in Christ, yet we often live like paupers. We stand within sight of the Promised Land, but we do not enter. Joshua did, because he knew five secrets.
1. Walking on two legs
A one-legged man can't get far; neither can we if we leave either our part or God's part out of our stride. "YOU are to pass over this Jordan, to go in to TAKE possession of the land which the Lord your God GIVES you to possess." Does God give it or do we take it? Both, Joshua would say. It isn't either-or; it's both-and, like the left-right rhythm of a good conquering army. "Be strong and of good courage" (that's our foot forward), "for the Lord your God is with you" (that's His).
2. Divine Timing
"When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, they you shall set out from your place and follow it" (Josh 3:3). The ark, symbol of God's presence, always went ahead of the people of Israel.
Sometimes we get the order reversed and make a premature rush at the Promised Land. Maybe it's a healing that we think should come sooner than it does, or marriage when God still has some growing for us to do. In discouragement we conclude that particular promise just isn't for us: "I'll never get well." "I guess I'm just not meant to be married."
Forty years before the successful invasion under Joshua, the children of Israel, too, made an abortive attack on the Promised Land. "They presumed to go up... although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord, nor Moses, departed out of the camp. Then the Amalekites... came down and defeated them" (Num. 14:44, 45).
3. Passing through water
"When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark... shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be stopped from flowing." Between the children of Israel and the Promised Land lay an impassable barrier, the Jordan River in spring spate.
Ask God what stands between you and full enjoyment of all He has for you. Is it fear of commitment? Of giving something up?
Joshua did not set about constructing a bridge - and our own efforts will not carry us across our Jordan. Instead, Joshua invited God right down into the threatening situation itself.
And when he did, the torrents of doubt and fear were checked. It didn't happen by magic. The temporary cutting off of the Jordan's flow has been observed in modern times, when spring floods undercut cliffs upstream, toppling tons of earth and rock into the river to create a natural dam. When we ask God into our fears and resistances, He involves us in His natural processes of change and transformation.
4. Stones from the riverbed
"Take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder... that this may be a sign among you... in time to come." That's the purpose of the log we've kept throughout our journey. God's marvelous guidance and provision is not to be forgotten when the immediate need is past, but kept before us as "a memorial for ever."
5. The edge of the sword
We're apt to shrink, nowadays, from the grisly details of Joshua's campaign, to find them primitive and bloodthirsty. What, after all, are we to make of God-fearing men who "utterly destroyed both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword"?
Precisely that they wanted God more than they wanted anything else. Reading ourselves into the account means identifying those "men and women, young and old, oxen and sheep" in our own lives. A "manly" refusal to admit need? A "ladylike" distaste for emotional displays? Some "innocent" small pleasure? Whatever it is, if it stands between us and God's promises, He wants it destroyed!
The Choice
Joshua's last words to his people make the perfect summary of our own eventful journey. An old man now, he reviews their long pilgrimage - and ours.
"Thus says the Lord... I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan... and his children went down to Egypt... I brought your fathers out of the Egypt... And you went over the Jordan."
In some or many areas of our lives we are living now in the Promised Land. Where we can relax, right? Not at all, cautions Joshua. The rest that God gives is not a relapse into carelessness. When we stop traveling, when we settle down, Joshua warns, two kinds of false gods will tempt us: "the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River" - old idolatries, outgrown ways of dealing with problems, and "the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell" - the current standards of the world around us.
"Now therefore," Joshua concludes his farewell address, "choose this day whom you will serve." It is a daily matter, in the Promised Land as on the road, this decision to follow the God who has led us out of sorrow into Joy.
Help me each morning, LORD, to affirm with Joshua, "As for me and and my house, we will serve the LORD!"