Get Your Feet Wet

THIS WEEK I finished the last of the first five books of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy. The end of the old Jewish Law. Spoiler alert: God chose for Moses to die before Israel crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land, and about the beginning of the next book his successor and the title character, Joshua, led the people through the river. Not around. Not over. They walked through it. This is really neat to me - just as God parted the Red Sea for Israel to escape from Egypt and begin their journey, He parted the Jordan River to end their journey and bring them to the land they would conquer for their settlement. Joshua 3:5 "And Joshua said to the people, 'Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.'" The way God did this tells me something about us today. He told the people to let the priests carrying the ark of the covenant - the symbol of His Presence and His promise to Israel - approach the river first. Everybody stand back. The Lord is going to be the one to retrain the water while they walk through. What God didn't do is draw the water back slowly, as they got closer, so that when they got there it would already be parted for them. He didn't even do it when they stood right on the edge of the river. He said He would part the water for them to cross once the priests had gotten their feet wet. One step into the water, and the water will stop in a "heap," He told them, and flood the banks of the river upstream. v. 14-16 "So it was, when the people stepped out fom their camp to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest), that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan. So the waters that went down to the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, failed, and were cut off; and the people crossed over opposite Jericho." It seems that God was telling His people two things: first, that He is able to make the way for them despite any obstacle; and second, that to see Him make a way, sometimes they will have to step out in expectation that He will do as He said He would do. The word says that this was the time of year when the Jordan was overflowing its banks. Can you imagine approaching this river, already deep and wide, insurmountable, at the time when it has deepened and widened to its maximum? Approaching with many thousands of individuals and families behind you, who are waiting for the Promised Land they've waited for? What does a heap of water even look like? I can't picture that. They just had to know that He had done it before to set their fathers free, and He was able to do it again to complete their journey. All He asked of them was to get their feet wet. Get their feet wet, and proclaim that their faith was in the Lord their God, whose Presence went along with the ark they carried. Get their feet wet, and declare that the Lord's power is with the obedient as they look down and watch the water drain out from between their toes. See the river shrink and feel the dry soil and they continued marching with restrained water beside them. Stand in the middle of a live river bed while the Lord holds open the way for thousands of the children of Israel to walk around them to the other side in victory. To see His glory, sometimes God asks us to get our feet wet and see if He won't hold back the river. Sometimes that can be the simple but bold act of asking. It means putting our hope in God and His goodness. Jesus has been impressing on me the impact of simply asking. These words of His kept showing up for me this week: Luke 11:9-10 "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." If we want to see him move, sometimes He wants us to just have enough faith to ask. Or sometimes He just wants us to go, and let Him supply to place and the people once we have set our hearts to follow his command. Sometimes it will be to speak or to pray or to preach, something that takes a little faith, because He will always honor the one whose faith turns to obedient action, and whose expectation turns to movement. We act on faith, and He moves mountains: isn't that something we see a lot? It's even how our salvation is designed. Have faith in the Son of God, and He will trade His stainless record for our ruined condition. He will make the way for us to come to the Father. He'll hold the water back. The people couldn't cross over until their priests had made that declaration by a single footstep - Your people trust You. The men of Israel took twelve stones with them as they crossed the river and piled them up on the other side, as a memorial to the way God moved for them that day. As a result, all the people on that side of the Jordan were terrified of Israel, because the Lord was with them. The enemy doesn't know what to do when there is a people approaching that lives by faith in the one true God. That's a people who has victory.

Thunder

THIS WEEK thunderstorms emptied themselves over the city for days, and God showed Himself through them. My dog, Sugar, is a little shi tzu who comes up to my knees. She's about ten years old, and as she gets older she is beginning to hate thunder more and more. When it rains, she gets very nervous. When the thunder roars, she begins to tremble uncontrollably. As the storm goes on, she looks for someone she trusts to protect her. You see, there are things my dog doesn't understand about the weather. She doesn't know that thunder does not mean the world is ending. It's the same with fireworks at New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July. For a little dog, it seems like the sky is exploding, or like some monster has come to strip the house away from the earth. She has super doggy ears but she can't understand what she's hearing. So all she can do is run to one of us, her family, who don't seem to be worried about the calamity that is surely iminent. It's gotten so bad lately that we had to get her a bottle of calming pills with camomile to help her relax. But she doesn't want to take them, and even when she will swallow it, it doesn't calm her shivering. All she wants is to be with her family. She's still scared, but when we are near her she has hope that she will see tomorrow. Getting to be the one Sugar runs to showed me something about God. He loves to be there when we need Him, and He loves when He is the One we run to. It's the same thing a shepherd does with his sheep. He makes himself present and takes care of every need for each sheep. God calls us His sheep repeatedly through the Bible, to tells us that we both need Him and have Him. Jesus makes it very clear in John 10:27-28 when He says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand." Holding on to little Sugar and trying to make her feel safe made me think of how God takes care of us. It reminded me that while receiving grace is a free gift, it's also a covenant. Jesus' blood made a new covenant for us that's beautiful and eternal: believe grace, receive grace; seek Him first, be provided for; let Him be your treasure, and have no lack. This way God will be glorified, and we will be blessed. This is really what I needed Him to remind me this week. I'm thankful for the storms, even if they did give Sugar a terrible week. And I'm thankful for the night when one of my life verses came up on my phone unexpectedly. It felt like God really wanted to remind me of it, even though I've turned to it a hundred times: Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." If we will seek God faithfully and wholeheartedly, He will provide faithfully too. Sugar doesn't understand the weather or thunder or rain, so she runs to somebody who loves her. I know about thunder, and I understand that she doesn't have any reason to be afraid. I know she's going to be okay. But as long as she is scared, I'll help her. God knows about thunder. He fills the food dish. The lightning doesn't scare Him, and He knows that when it's all over we will still be safe with Him. What He wants is to be the One we run to when the rain starts falling.

Blessed is She Who Believed

THIS WEEK we are celebrating mothers. For most of us a mom represents a special relationship, better than a friendship, that launches us into life and gives us instruction in how to live it. A mom isn't just somebody who has given birth to somebody. That's not an easy thing to do, but the bigger challenge is to raise that person up in Christ by being an example of what it means to live by faith. That's what I got, and keep getting, from my mom. And I think that relationship is one of the greatest things God has put in this world. Earlier this week I read about a couple of moms you've probably heard of - Elizabeth and Mary. My pastor actually talked about them this morning too. They were ordinary people whom God chose to exalt because of their faithfulness to following Him. Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, doesn't get talked about as much as Mary, the mother of Jesus, and for obvious reasons. Mary's Son is more important than Elizabeths, as even Elizabeth could confess. But I like her a lot, and it's been a blessing to me to have her story on my mind this week. She and her husband Zacharias were something like Sarah and Abraham - really old, childless, but serving God faithfully into their old age. Luke 1:6-7 "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in age." They wanted children. It's to be expected. But they didn't have any, and they didn't have a reason to think they would ever have any at this point. What stands out to me is that Elizabeth had quite clearly done nothing wrong to deserve this problem. This wasn't her fault. Her great achievement, which God honored, was that she and her husband served faithfully even though they weren't getting what they must have hoped and prayed for all their lives. But Elizabeth's heart was receptive to a miracle. God let this happen so that all the world would see His hand in their situation: that the son of their old age would become an important part of His plan, someone to prepare the way of the Lord. He made it a miracle. Do you know what Elizabeth said about that? She said, in Luke 1:25, "Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people." Her reproach was that she'd had no children. It was a flaw. A downfall. But God saw her faithfulness as His servant and as a wife, and He chose to honor the one whom others rejected. We don't get a lot of information about this lady, but we get a clear and timeless message about what it means to be a godly woman. She follows the Lord with all her heart, rain or shine, hurt or fine. She seeks Him relentlessly and glorifies Him with what He has given, and she doesn't give up when she doesn't know whether He hears. He does, and she and everyone around her will see Him honor her for her faithfulness. Her children will look at her and see what means to live by Proverbs 3:5, which says to "trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding." Mary was different from Elizabeth because she was young and engaged, not full of experience and years. She was probably in her early teen years. She probably couldn't read or write. But her heart, like Elizabeth's, was receptive to a miracle. Her great achievement was that even though she didn't fully understand what was going to happen, she knew that God is able to do what He has said He will do. If He decided,so that the world would see His grace and power, that a virgin should bear his Son, she didn't have to understand it to know He was going to do it. God knows that's hard for us to swallow. I can't imagine what it must be like to have an angel come to your house and tell you that you're suddenly going to be pregnant, and your baby is going to be God's Savior for the world. I don't know what that feels like. The look on her face must have been something to see. But God gave Gabriel some words to encourage her. (v. 37) "For with God nothing will be impossible." A godly woman looks at that big statement and owns it. She lives by the belief that God is bigger than our lack of understanding, and the impossible is something fun for Him to step right over like an ant hill. She talks like Mary talks. v. 38 "Now Mary said, 'Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her." It's cool to me to notice what happened when Elizabeth's husband Zacharias heard the news about John, from the same angel. He didn't believe it. He had an angel standing in front of him, and he asked how he could be sure. So he was mute until the child was born, and God made him eat his words. Mary was blessed among women because she took God at His word. When Elizabeth saw Mary when she visited, the Holy Spirit filled her, and she told Mary (v.45) "Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord." My mom, and a lot of the moms in my family and my life, trust God like these ladies did. God isn't looking for perfect people with perfect lives. He wants people whose devotion to Him does not depend on their circumstances or on their ability to understand. I know that's hard for me, but I sure have a good place to look to get better at it.

Crazy

THIS WEEK I've been learning more about the wisdom of God than I did last week. It would seem that His wisdom can be seen, more than anywhere else, in the things that seem absolutely crazy to us. While going through my Bible in a Year program I came across a funny story that I had heard is in the Bible somewhere. It's in Numbers 22. I never thought the book of Numbers would prove itself so interesting! It's a story about a talking donkey, which proves two things: First, that God is furiously protective of His people; and second, that He has a great sense of humor. To stop a man named Balaam from pronouncing a curse over Israel as a favor to his friend Balak, God appeared in his path. Balaam didn't notice Him there, but his loving donkey did. Three times along the road she objected to aproaching where the Angel of the Lord stood with His sword drawn, but Balaam repremanded her. v.28-31 "Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, 'What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?' And Balaam said to the donkey, 'Because you have abused me. I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now I would kill you!' So the donkey said to Balaam, 'Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden, ever since I became yours, to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you?' And he said, 'No.' Then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face." God didn't want him to turn back home and forget his friend Balak. He used the talking donkey to make sure that once he got to Balak he would pronounce a blessing instead of a curse. v.35 "Then the Angel of the Lord said to Balaam, 'Go with the men, but only the word that I speak to you, that you shall speak.' So Balaam went with the princes of Balak." If He hadn't spoken through the donkey, Israel would have been cursed and made subject to Balak, and Father God could not let that happen to His children. He had blessed them, so He could not allow them to be cursed. That was the people the Savior would be coming to. So in a funny way, God used a donkey in part of His big, beautiful salvation plan. He also proved, to put it plainly, that people can often be dumber than an ass! For me it also means that God has always been doing this. He often chooses what is not our first choice to show us that He knows best. He chose the make a tiny town, Bethlehem, at a plain place, a stable, as the birthplace of the Savior of the world. He would grow up in the backwoods part of Israel, Galilee, as a carpenter with little education. He doesn't choose to save only the rich and visible. He can make glory grow up out of the cracks in the sidewalk. He will speak through children and fools and donkeys to show us that nothing can hinder Him, and that His wisdom transcends ours completely. 1 Corinthians 3:18-19 "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their own craftiness.'" That assurance comes with a challenge to be satisfied in what His wisdom says is good for us. It's assuring and easy to say that God is wise until He asks us to depend on Him alone for life. Will we let His wisdom be an assurance to us when He asks us not to follow our own wisdom? A few chapters before the episode with the donkey, the children of Israel are wandering around the wilderness following God and have begun to complain. In Numbers 11, here they are, actually wishing God had never worked all His wonders and taken them out of their enslavement in Egypt. They aren't satisfied with the food He has given them, and they want Him to give them meat. Their words really amaze me: v.6 "But now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!" Oh, what a shame! To have only perfect bread from heaven, as much as each person needs. They must have been wasting away! That bread was a symbol of what Jesus is for us. The One God the Father sent to give nourishment to our souls, to make us depend on Him alone for life. "Manna" means "What?" because they didn't know what it was but that it was a good thing God had given. Because they were not satisfied with what His wisdom said was good, God gave them meat with a plague. It's frightening to me to think what it must be like to look up from your donkey and see God with His sword drawn against you. What could be more terrifying than getting what I want from the God who already gave me what you need, when I told Him it wasn't enough for me? Believing God is wise involves us trusting His judgement, even though it seems crazy to us. It means following Him by faith, not by understanding, because He is the One with understanding and He won't always explain it to us. He does not call us to wrap our heads around him, but to cast our cares on Him and be satisfied in Him. He will honor our faith with His faithfulness.