Daily Lesson for January 4, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Joshua chapter 3 verses 14 through 17:

14 When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people.15Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, 16the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing towards the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.

The old rabbis used to say that when the Israelites came to the Red Sea and began to cross over the waters did not part until they were in over their heads. 

Such is life. God seems again and again to rescue us — to make a way out of no way, but only after we realize we can’t make it ourselves. God calls us to rise up and go; but we are in over our heads before deliverance comes. The Lesson we learn is to keep walking. 

A generation after the Israelites crosses over the Red Sea, the next generation crossed over the Jordan River. The Scripture says it wasn’t until the priests came into the water that the waters began to heap — and then only a long ways upstream. One way to read this is like the Rabbis on the Red Sea story — to say the Israelites would not yet have seen what God had done upstream because the water was still flowing where they were attempting to cross over. 

We just don’t know what God is doing upstream from us. We don’t see the whole picture. We don’t have the design on the whole plan for deliverance. We don’t know how in the world the way will be made. 

But when we are called to do something, we go.  When we are called to rise up and leave some oppressive Egypt or cross over and make some new and more hopeful Promised Land, we go. By faith, we go. And we trust that God is doing something upstream to work it out. 

And when the waters rise up we keep walking. And when we get in way over our heads, can’t go on ourselves, that’s when the LORD is sure and mighty to save.