Camping on the Wrong Side of the Jordan
“Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over …. 5 Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.” Joshua 3: 1, 5
The leader of the women’s ministry at my new church talked about this verse at a Bible study last weekend, and what she said has stuck with me. We can’t know the frame of mind of the Israelites as they camped their last few nights in the wilderness. But peppered throughout the book of Joshua are the instructions “Be strong and courageous.” You don’t need to be admonished to do those things if you’re not in the least afraid or uncertain. So chances are, they had some butterflies. They were gearing up to move into a land owned by someone else, that they knew they’d have to fight for, and oh yeah, in the morning they were going to somehow walk through a river to get there.
Had they let their fears control them, they may have stayed camped out across from the promised land, receiving none of the blessings of their inheritance and losing an opportunity to show God’s greatness. But they obeyed, so they got to experience the wonder of waters rushing back from the Ark of the Covenant so they could walk through on dry ground.
God is working in us, on us, and around us all the time, but he does his greatest works through us only when we swallow our fears, walk to the rocky edge of our comfort zone, and step out. Hebrews 11 is a laundry list of people doing impossible, uncomfortable, and inconvenient things in obedience to God, but if that’s too remote to resonate for you, there are modern tales of inconvenient obedience all over the place. Francis Chan, Jen Hatmaker, David Platt have all written about whole churches doing it. Those one or two people you know who actually fast every now and then? They might be doing it. The kid at Burger King who says God bless you when she hands you your lunch might even be doing it.
If I’m comfortable in my life, perhaps I’m ignoring a call to do more. Maybe writing the occasional FS blog post is a skinny little pigeon type of sacrifice, when I’ve got a stable’s worth of overweight lambs in the backyard, if you get my drift. I stand at the door of my stocked pantry and complain when I can’t decide what snack I’m in the mood for, and nearly 1 in 7 people worldwide are going hungry. I want to shine for Christ among my family and friends, but I’m too worried about what they’ll think of me to say too much about it.
Crossing the Jordan takes guts, even when it’s something as seemingly simple as starting a conversation. But when the Israelites did it, God went in before them, stood among them as they walked, and followed behind them when they reached the other side. He’ll do the same for us if we’ll only obey.