Lent Reflection #13 - Finding Good Stuff in the Tedium

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.

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…