Read Joshua 3
Do you have a
hard time making major decisions? If so,
you wouldn’t be alone! A lot of people
find themselves frozen up and unable to make big decisions. I’ve talked to so many young people who are
trying to decide whether to propose marriage or accept a proposal of
marriage. They ask all kinds of
questions. “How do I know this is the
right person? What if he or she changes
after we get married? What if I haven’t
given myself enough time to meet different people?” Then there are the couples who made the
decision to get married but can’t seem to make the decision to start a
family! They too have all kinds of
reasons for not making the decision.
“We’re not making enough money right now and if she got pregnant we’d
really be in trouble! The economy is so
bad; we’re just waiting for it to get better.
We don’t know if we’re going to be good parents. How do we know if it’s the right time?”
These are major decisions. The people who stand on the edge of making
such decisions often have a very difficult time. It’s the same whenever there is a major
change in a person’s life. My own twins,
Anna and Mary are graduating from high school next week. They have big decisions to make. College?
Which college? What courses? Should I just work for a year? Then there are young adults who are trying to
decide whether to move out on their own.
“Can I really afford this? What
if I lose my job? Maybe I should stay at
home and try to save more money? What if
I get lonely?” All of these situations
have something in common. In every case
a person is standing on the brink of the unknown. They have lived their lives up to this point
but now they are looking ahead into something they don’t know and cannot
see. It is difficult because we want to
know what lies ahead. We don’t like the
feeling of being out of control. We
would like to be able to set the boundaries of the future so we won’t be
surprised. It’s a lot easier if we can
know what to expect.
In Joshua 3 we find the Israelites
in just such a situation. Except for
Joshua and Caleb, all this generation knew was wandering in the
wilderness. None of them was over sixty
years of age and all of those forty or less had been born during the wilderness
trek. That was the only life they knew! Now they stood on the banks of the Jordan
River facing the Promised Land. The
river was at its flood stage and there was no bridge and there were no
boats. The massively walled city of
Jericho stood opposite them across the river.
How would they ever conquer Jericho?
And even if they did, it was only the first of many great cities in
Canaan.
Consider the kind of temptation that
had to be going through the minds of the Hebrews as they stood on the banks of
that river. They had never gone this way
before. They had been all over the Sinai
Peninsula but they had never crossed over the Jordan. Some of the people may have thought, “Look! All my life I’ve been a wandering nomad in
the desert. I’m used to it. Why don’t we just keep living the way we’ve
been living all this time?” Some may
have felt they had gone far enough.
“This land east of the Jordan is good land. It’s good enough for us. Why don’t we just stay right here and call it
good?” I’m sure many of them had great
fears in their minds and in their hearts.
I’m sure there were many who balked at Joshua’s command to cross the
river. Perhaps doing something great for
God was the very last thing on their minds!
When I think about the Israelites in
this way I can’t help but notice how I resemble them. In fact, there are probably many of us who
resemble them in some ways. We face the
unknown and realize we have never gone this way before. It’s something different and new and we don’t
know what to expect. We are asked to do
new things in the church and we’re filled with anxiety because we’ve never done
anything like that. We keep coming to
church and hearing new things in the sermons and Bible studies and sometimes we
just don’t know what to do with it all.
Some of us have grown rather comfortable in our lives and don’t really
want to be stretched too much. Some of
us, like the Hebrews, may be tempted to just stay with what we know, with what
is familiar, and hesitate to step into the unknown.
If the people of Israel would take a
moment to think about their situation they would discover that as they stood on
the brink of the unknown, they had both comfort and direction from God to help
them on their way. The same is true for
us, as we will see. Even as we face the
anxieties of the unknown, we can still see God and the encouragement he has for
us!
(To be continued…)
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