Joshua
is more tedious than I remember. This isn't necessarily a problem - I actually
appreciate that there's some tedious stuff in Scripture. If the Bible is
intended to be a collection of reflections on God and the human condition in
light of the reality and nature of God, then it should speak to the actual,
real lives of human beings. Tedium is a very real part of the human experience.
And a significant portion of the Old Testament is devoted to inventories,
allotment of property, and policies and procedures. I'm pretty sure that there's a
EULA in some hidden ancient manuscript that, if discovered, would probably
install Adobe or McAfee on my laptop.
Anyway,
what I like about the tedious stuff is that there are some jewels hidden in
there. In teaching and preaching, I'm consistently drawn to the stuff that we
might be likely to skim over or ignore entirely. In following my Bible reading
plan, I have discovered a number of these that I never noticed before. Some of
that's due to attentiveness and some of it's likely due to the fact that I'm a
more experienced reader of Scripture than I was when I last read this
part of the Bible closely.
One
verse in particular has stuck with me in my reading of Joshua, and like so much of Scripture, it has dug its way into my mind/heart/soul.
Joshua 1:9 - "I hereby command you: Be strong and
courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you
wherever you go."
Not a
suggestion. Not a question.
A command.
A command.
Be
strong. Be courageous. Do not be frightened. Do not be dismayed.
I really need to hear that one
week before my daughter's 2nd open-heart surgery. It could be really easy to
let fear and anxiety and "what if…" to totally take over. So I need
to hear this command as a command. A command
implies that strength and courage are within my reach. And I know that this
command was for Joshua and I'm taking it out of context by applying it to my
situation. But in my defense, I don't really care about that stuff right now.
It
makes me think of the story in Numbers 13 of the spies sent to scope out the
promised land. They came back with reports of terrifying, baby-eating,
Hebrew-destroying giants. They were afraid before they went to spy and their
fear determined what they saw.
The
same could easily be true for me - when it comes to Mary Ana's upcoming
surgery, I know exactly those things that I'm afraid of, but God commands me to
not be afraid. God knows that if I'm being led by my fears, I'll see giants
that aren't there. My thinking, speaking, and acting (and parenting) will be
guided by my fears and anxieties.
But if
I remember that God is with me wherever I go and that God's grace is always
there to meet me, my focus changes and what I see is defined by grace and by
faith, not by fear. So in the midst of tedium, I found wisdom, truth, and love.
Thanks
be to God…
