Eddying Out – Equilibrium

Posted on October 22, 2014 by wamplerp

IMGP5427I am just finishing up a very busy week of travel, teaching, learning, and sharing my research.  I am writing this post as I fly at 30,000 feet from Vancouver BC, Canada to Minneapolis, MN.  I have been going flat out and have not been able to manage my daily walk with water for a couple of days.

Rather than feel guilty about the gap in my posts I thought it would be appropriate to view this time as a series of invigorating rapids that required my full attention to avoid a mishap…like a student forgetting their passport in a restaurant and not realizing it until the next day — 30 minutes before we were scheduled to sail on a ferry!

As I reflect on what was missing over the last couple of days when I did not have time to continue my “walk on water” one word came to mind….equilibrium.  The pace of the last week has not favored balance and equilibrium.  I think God understands that we will pass through these times in our lives, and I do not think He holds them against us.  I have the feeling he was carrying me like a son many times over the last week.

My sense is that the journey I am on with water, God, and the bible is ultimately a lifelong trek.  God wants me to carry out this journey with joy rather than a sense of judgement when I am not able to meet with him every day.  I feel like God wants me to incorporate the wisdom He shares with me about water in the bible in my bones rather than carry it like a burden on my back.

I have missed the daily wrestling with difficult passages, the hidden gems found in unexpected places, and the rain from heaven that God provides this “tender plant” along the way.  In some ways the distance of the last few days has allowed me to view my journey as a cherished friend or loved one who has been away.  A friend who has returned now for a cup of tea to share about the adventures of their journey.  I am excited to dive in again with a fresh sense of wonder to see where God leads.

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Spoils of War

Posted on October 18, 2014 by wamplerp

IMGP5094In accordance with the Lord ’s command to him, Joshua gave to Caleb son of Jephunneh a portion in Judah—Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.) From Hebron Caleb drove out the three Anakites—Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai, the sons of Anak. From there he marched against the people living in Debir (formerly called Kiriath Sepher). And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.” Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him in marriage.   One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What can I do for you?”   She replied, “Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.” So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. – Joshua 15:13-19

In the preceding chapters the wars to take possession of the promised land have ended and extensive details about who was conquered, killed, or crushed are provided.  I still have not figured out why God chose to convey his promise in this way, but after the war comes dividing up the spoils of war.

The responsibility falls to Joshua to allocate land and resources to the various tribes of Israel.  In this passage Joshua is allocating a portion of Judah which apparently is still occupied by the people of Kiriath Sepher.  Caleb gives his daughter’s hand in marriage to Othniel, the one who conquered the land for him.  As a wedding present his daughter Aksah asks for and receives springs of water for the land.

What a long way the Israelites have come from the day to day dependence on God when provided Hidden wells for Hagar and manna from heaven. God is not even mentioned in this “transaction” between Joshua, Caleb, and Aksah. It seems earthly spoils have replaced heavenly toils, and God has been lost in the transactions over the promised land. The Israelites are failing to remember God and all the things he has done for them. This same secularism seems to be affecting some Jewish people even today when they choose earthly possessions and property over their heavenly heritage. Certainly Christians are not immune from this same struggle between the secular and the sacred.

How often does the good news of the gospel become merely a path to prosperity? The beautiful and ornate churches of the Vatican or Europe come to my mind. Was the building of these expensive and ornate structures the equivalent of the Israelites dividing the spoils of war? Was more effort expended building with bricks than shoring up souls? The dramatic decrease in people following Christ in Europe would suggest that the efforts may have been misguided. It will be interesting to see the rest of the unfolding of this “hand off” of the promised land, but I can cannot shake the feeling that at least so far the Israelites have become distracted from faithful following of God…again.

Prayer: God help us to maintain our focus on knowing You rather than the things You provide for us.

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Massacre at Merom

Posted on October 17, 2014 by wamplerp

IMGP5105When Jabin king of Hazor heard of this, he sent word to Jobab king of Madon, to the kings of Shimron and Akshaph, and to the northern kings who were in the mountains, in the Arabah south of Kinnereth, in the western foothills and in Naphoth Dor on the west; to the Canaanites in the east and west; to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites and Jebusites in the hill country; and to the Hivites below Hermon in the region of Mizpah. They came out with all their troops and a large number of horses and chariots—a huge army, as numerous as the sand on the seashore. All these kings joined forces and made camp together at the Waters of Merom to fight against Israel. The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, because by this time tomorrow I will hand all of them, slain, over to Israel. You are to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots.” So Joshua and his whole army came against them suddenly at the Waters of Merom and attacked them, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Israel. They defeated them and pursued them all the way to Greater Sidon, to Misrephoth Maim, and to the Valley of Mizpah on the east, until no survivors were left. Joshua did to them as the Lord had directed: He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots.  – Joshua 11:1-9

This is the first time I remember a water feature being the location of a massacre in the bible. In the past water has always been a means of providing for God’s people. I admit I don’t think I understand what is going on here. Why would God choose to destroy the people of this land? Not only destroy them but decimate their horses and chariots as well. God is treating these occupants like a virus that must be eradicated.

This is the first verse I have encountered that I feel at a loss to understand. C.S. Lewis discussed verses like this. His recommendation was to leave the verse and return to it later. Sometimes we are not in the right place to understand a given verse. This is how I feel about this verse and the seemingly God-sanctioned massacre that it describes. So I have decided to leave it, continuing to pray, and return to it later.

Prayer: God help me to understand this verse and how it fits with the loving God that I know You to be.

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Eddying Out – Islands…

Posted on October 16, 2014 by wamplerp

image

I have not taken a breather to “eddy out” for a while.  I just travelled across the country with a dozen undergraduate geology students…in planes, cars, through two border crossings and three time zones.  I am lucky I can still type!  All is well and we are set to begin a geologic adventure exploring the San Juan Islands in Washington State.

These islands were carved and shaped by a massive glacier about a mile thick called the Cordilleran Ice Sheet.  Since glaciers are made of solid water I thought it appropriate to explore the spiritual metaphors of islands and how they can be sculpted and shaped by glaciers.  We have explored in previous posts how God is like water…in today’s post let’s explore ways that God is like a glacier and we are like islands.

Glaciers like the one that shaped the San Juan Islands were massive, slow moving, ephemeral (they were here – now they are not), and profoundly changed the landscape through which they passed.  As I ponder this it seems to me that God, when He showed up on earth as Jesus, was like the glacier that shaped the San Juan’s and we are the sculpted islands.

Jesus was certainly massive…for the Doctor Who fans out there…He was bigger on the inside than the outside.  He was so big that people were attracted to His very presence by the “gravity” of who He was and the love that emanated from Him.  His spiritual presence was so big that the Pharisees and Sadducees felt they were being pushed aside.  They chose to defy “gravity” and placed Him on a cross rather than enter His orbit.

Glaciers move slow, but their movement is relentless and constant.  They accomplish their sculpting with the help of rocks embedded in the glacial ice.  When these fragments are very large and they get left behind when the glacier melts they are called glacial erratics.  Jesus started slow with a few followers, but He was, and is, relentless and constant.  He picked up followers along the way.  They became embedded in His movement and helped him to sculpt and shape the lives of those they encountered.  It seems like His disciples often wanted Him to move faster, but God’s time is not our time.  I often show time lapse videos of glaciers moving to my students so they can see something not visible to our unaided eye.   Wouldn’t it be cool if we could create spiritual time lapse videos of God shaping our lives like glaciers shape the landscape.

Glaciers are ephemeral, they come and go over long periods.  God is not ephemeral, but His physical presence in the form of Jesus came and went from earth.  His profound impact on us “islands” and the world remains.   God in heaven and the holy spirit also remain to send rain on us tender plants and continue the sculpting of our souls.  Although the “glacier” is gone, Jesus remains in us, and He has promised to return. 

Prayer:  God continue to shape the landscape of my life with Your love for me.

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Heroes and Hailstones

Posted on October 15, 2014 by wamplerp

The Gibeonites then sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal: “Do not abandon your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us! Help us, because all the Amorite kings from the hill country have joined forces against us.”  So Joshua marched up from Gilgal with his entire army, including all the best fighting men.  The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you.”  After an all-night march from Gilgal, Joshua took them by surprise.  The Lord threw them into confusion before Israel, so Joshua and the Israelites defeated them completely at Gibeon. Israel pursued them along the road going up to Beth Horon and cut them down all the way to Azekah and Makkedah.  As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them, and more of them died from the hail than were killed by the swords of the Israelites. – Joshua 10:6-11

This is the first time I remember water taking a solid form in the bible. God uses hailstones to take care of a “coalition” of kingdoms that had banded to together to take out the Gibeonites because they had the gaul to form a treaty with the Israelites.  God had the Israelite’s back and, by association and treaty, the Gibeonites back too.  This reminds me of the way God had Moses’ and Israelites back when he came between the Israelites and the Egyptians in the Red Sea parting.

Solid water falling from the sky in the form of hailstones is a scary and painful thing.  It ranks right up there with getting struck by lighting on the scale of weather hazards to avoid.  These must have been very large hailstones to kill more of the enemy than the swords of the Israelites.  This is a reminder that ultimately the battle belongs to God not the Israelites.  Their swords may seem like the most lethal weapon at their disposal, when in reality it is God watching their back.  The Israelites seem to be more comfortable with the role of warrior than water carrier.

The Israelites, and God, certainly came through for the Gibeonites.  They were protected from a superior force that they could not hope to defeat because Joshua, and the God of Israel, intervened.  The Israelites played the Role of heroes for the Gibeonites.  OK actually it was God who was the hero, but He seldom gets the credit.

What is the deeper spiritual meaning here?  It seems like the main point God is trying to reinforce with the Israelites…again…is that they need to follow God unconditionally and trust that He will be their protector and guide.  The hailstones were a tangible picture of the way that God wants to care for and carry the Israelites, and us.  He may not smite our enemies with chunks of ice, but we can be confident that He has our backs.

Prayer: Thank You God that You have our backs, You care deeply about us, and You want to protect us from harm. 

SDG
Posted in Covenant, Faith, Following God, God's Love for Us, Joshua, Obedience, The Nature of God | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Warriors or Water Carriers

Posted on October 14, 2014 by wamplerp

Water trip 085Three days after they made the treaty with the Gibeonites, the Israelites heard that they were neighbors, living near them.  So the Israelites set out and on the third day came to their cities: Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth and Kiriath Jearim.  But the Israelites did not attack them, because the leaders of the assembly had sworn an oath to them by the Lord, the God of Israel.  The whole assembly grumbled against the leaders, but all the leaders answered, “We have given them our oath by the Lord, the God of Israel, and we cannot touch them now.  This is what we will do to them: We will let them live, so that God’s wrath will not fall on us for breaking the oath we swore to them.”  They continued, “Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers in the service of the whole assembly.” So the leaders’ promise to them was kept.  Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, “Why did you deceive us by saying, ‘We live a long way from you,’ while actually you live near us?  You are now under a curse: You will never be released from service as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.” – Joshua 9:16-23

This verse comes after some rather bloodthirsty retribution against the people of Ai, the people who the Israelites lost against because their hearts were like water.  Joshua has straightened out the leaders responsible in a rather firm way — they were stoned to death.  I am glad that God deals with us, and we can deal with each other, differently now.

The Gibeonites are attempting to deceive Joshua and the Israelites by saying they were from a far away place when in fact they were from nearby and merely wanted to avoid the fate of the people of Ai.  Joshua agrees to let them live because of the oath the Israelites had taken not to harm them, but he consigns them to the role of woodcutters and water carriers.

Apparently woodcutters and water carriers were not highly desirable occupations.  Perhaps they were the equivalent of modern day garbage collectors, janitors, or septic system cleaners — jobs most people would not choose today.  In rural Haiti it is often the women and children who fetch water, the water carriers.  It is hard work, but it also provides the women and children with a sense of community and a place to connect with each other.

I will never forget one day when I was working in Haiti.  I was there with a student and we were researching the water quality of local springs.  We had an amazing young Haitian man with us who was interpreting and serving as our guide.  We met a young woman near the bottom of a steep hill and we asked her, through our interpreter, where a spring was nearby up the hill.  She was going that way with her 5-gallon bucket full of water and she said we could follow her.  I thought I was in pretty good shape.  We proceeded to hike up a very steep trail, struggling to keep our footing as the young woman glided up the slope with the 5-gallon bucket on her head —no lid—not spilling a drop.

The young Haitian woman was a “water carrier” from whom I could learn a lot.  She was not embarrassed to carry water.  She was sure-footed and confident.  Does God prefer warriors or water carriers?  It seems in this passage that God wants warriors, but when Jesus came he was seeking “water carriers” to carry His living water to a thirsty world. I aspire to be as sure-footed and confident in that task as the woman was in Haiti.

Prayer: God help us to carry water for you with confidence, even when we feel like we need to be warriors.

Posted in Christian Community, Discipleship, Following God, Joshua, Trusting God | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hearts Like Water

Posted on October 13, 2014 by wamplerp

waterdropsWhen they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the army will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there.” So about three thousand went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai, who killed about thirty-six of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water.   Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord , remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads. And Joshua said, “Alas, Sovereign Lord , why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan! Pardon your servant, Lord. What can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?” – Joshua 7:3-9

Well it did not take long for the Israelites to forget how to follow God.  It was not long ago that God held back the waters of the Jordan River and then gave the Israelites victory over Jericho.  Now it is the Israelites hearts that are melted out of fear and becoming like water rather than their enemies.  So what changed?  Guess who moved?  The Israelites get ahead of God’s leading and fail to faithfully follow God.  They forgot who it was who gave them the victory at Jericho.

The language used here is interesting —“Their hearts melted in fear and became like water”.  I assume by hearts what is meant really is their souls or at least the part inside of them that makes decisions and choices.  So what does it mean for our souls to become like water?  How could our souls be like water?  What is water like?  I explored some of this territory in a blog post a while back about How God is like Water.  What is different in this case is that our souls are being compared to water in a negative way.

Water is a fluid and fickle thing it 1) evaporates easily with the addition of a little heat and sunlight; 2) follows the path of least resistance; 3) almost always flows downhill in response to gravity; and 4) when two droplets are close they tend to group together into a larger droplet. Let’s explore each one of these.

Water has a relatively low boiling point and in fact water molecules are always moving from bodies of water into the air and back again.  When heat is applied this process accelerates and water disappears into vapor.  This is pretty much what happened to the Israelites confidence and resolve when they went up against the army of Ai.  The heat of battle evaporated the confidence they had in God and they lost.

The reason they lost was apparently because they were following the path of least resistance rather than the path that God needed them to follow.  They were not practicing the art of leading while following God.  Their easy path ended up in disaster, just like some of the easy paths that many of us follow.  The consequences are often not what we intend or want.

Water tends to obey gravity…it flows down hill.  The equivalent of “gravity” for our souls can be the prevailing culture and morals that carry us with them if we are not careful to follow God.  Following God often means swimming against the current (like water flowing up hill) in the opposite direction that we would be carried by the societal “gravity” around us.  The Israelite leaders who went to war with Ai were allowing themselves to be carried by “gravity” instead of the God who wants to carry them like a son or daughter.

The last property of water is its tendency to clump together.  If you have ever been mesmerized by water droplets on a car windshield or shower glass you will know what I am talking about.  The droplets seem to be attracted to one another and all of a sudden combine into a larger droplet of water, gain mass and momentum, and move down the glass.  This may be partly what happened to the Israelite leaders.  They got together and their group momentum (peer pressure) caused them to make a very bad choice to get ahead of God.  When we get out ahead of God it is easy to get lost.

Prayer: God I confess that my soul is like water sometimes, give me the wisdom, faith, and patience to faithfully follow You.

Posted in Christian Leadership, Covenant, Discernment, Faith, Following God, Joshua, Obedience, Trusting God | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

River Rocks and Remembrance

Posted on October 12, 2014 by wamplerp

RiverRocks

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord . When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day. – Joshua 4:1-9

Gathering stones from a river…I can relate to this. Geologists actually do this for fun (and work). I spent about three years of my life studying a river called the Clackamas River in Oregon, where I measured, weighed, and sifted thousands of rocks as part of my PhD research. These years were some of the most challenging and rewarding years of my life.

God has asked the Israelite leaders to gather stones to make a monument, or standing stones, so that they will remember what God did for them at the Jordan River. They were to take the stone on their shoulders and carry it to the other side of the Jordan where it could me made into a monument for future generations. The stones that the men were collecting were river rocks, worn smooth by many years of floods.

Rocks can be angular and rough or smooth and round. The angular ones have not travelled far or they have been broken by weathering. The round and smooth ones have been worn smooth by many floods that have taken away the sharp edges. Our souls are a bit like rocks –they start out rough and angular with many pointy edges.

As we go through life our souls can get more angular and broken or they can get rounded and smooth if we allow ourselves to be carried by the river and washed by floods. The rounding and smoothing process takes place because the rocks hit each other as they tumble down the river. Perhaps there is a life lesson here. What is the process whereby our souls can “become rounded and smooth”?

It seems our souls become more rounded and smooth in the same way rocks do — we place ourselves in community with other souls so that we jostle and bump into each other as we go through our life together. This process of living life together is full of conflict and floods — but it is in these things that the smoothing and rounding of our souls is accomplished.
We can choose to remove ourselves from our place by the river and disconnect ourselves from spring to reduce conflict in our lives, but this choice may mean that our souls remain angular and rough. We may find ourselves left out of the monument that God is in the process of building here on earth so that people will come to know and love Him.

Prayer: God smooth our souls through the process of living life together and all the difficult conflict and hard work this entails.

SDG
Posted in Christian Community, Following God, God's Love for Us, Joshua, Life Together, Miracles, The Spiritual Realm | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Standing Waves

Posted on October 11, 2014 by wamplerp

IMG_6476And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.  Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.’”  Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.  This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites.  See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you.  Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe.  And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”  So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them.  Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.  The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground. – Joshua 3:7-17

This passage is the “opening act” of God’s interactions with the Israelites through their new leader Joshua.  It is quite an opening.  God wants to answer the question the Israelites are constantly asking “is God among us or not?”  God’s presence in cloud and fire has been replaced by the ark of the covenant being carried by the priests.

God is doing a thing he has done before for the Israelites when they were being chased by the Egyptians at the Red Sea.  He is parting the River Jordan in a dramatic and miraculous way.  When the feet of the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant touched the water of the river the flow of the river “piled up in a heap”.  The river was in flood making this feat even more miraculous.  This miracle would be considered a relational miracle in that it is an important part of the relationship between God and the Israelites as they pass into the Promised Land.

From a scientific point of view the events described would require the suspension of the natural function of Jordan River.  Could God do this?  I am confident that God could if he chose to do so. This suspension of natural laws would have occured in a limited area for specific purpose — to let the Israelites know that God was among them as they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land.

This account is somewhat different than the parting of the Red Sea.  In the case of the Red Sea the parting seems to have been accomplished over a span of time and with the help of a dry wind.  The parting of the Jordan River seems to have been pretty much instantaneous.  The priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant entered the river and it stopped flowing.  Flash floods are relatively common in the desert, flash droughts not so much.

There are only three natural mechanisms I know about that can stop a river in its tracks: landslides; ice jams; and log jams.  None of these would seems to be at play in this case.  So one is left with a temporary suspension of natural laws.  Interestingly, the description of the event is consistent with the hydraulics of rivers to an extent.  The water piled up in a heap is an apt description of what is referred to as a “standing wave” in a river.  Standing waves are basically the hydraulic equivalent of the sonic boom that an airplane makes when it exceeds the speed of sound.  When water flows fast enough it reaches a point where it cannot deform fast enough and it “piles up” to form a standing wave.

Standing waves can be a rafters delight or doom depending on the size of the standing wave and the skill of the rafter.  The dangerous thing about standing waves is that they can create a water surface that actually tilts back upstream.  If one gets caught in the wave, which is not actually moving relative to the river, rafts can be flipped and passengers can find themselves stuck in a virtual washing machine with little hope of escape.  The water itself continues to move downstream, but the disturbance of the standing wave keeps the rafters firmly in it’s grip.

Is there such a thing as a spiritual “standing wave”?  Can there be interruptions to the spiritual flow of our lives in which we can get stuck?  What, or who, is responsible for these spiritual disturbances?  One of the most interesting explorations of spiritual disturbances and obstructions is a book by C.S. Lewis called the Great Divorce.  It is a fictional exploration of the spiritual standing waves in people’s lives in which they have become stuck and how they can get out.  In most cases it involves: 1) admitting God loves us no matter what we, or others, have done; 2) knowing and accepting that God wants all of us; and 3) Having a posture and perspective that allows us to see and experience the Kingdom of God.

Prayer: God help us to avoid spiritual standing waves that can grab a hold of our lives and keep us from experiencing your love.

Posted in Christian Community, Covenant, Discernment, Following God, Joshua, The Spiritual Realm | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Widely Known

Posted on October 10, 2014 by wamplerp

Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.  When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. – Joshua 2:8-11

In this passage we find spies sent out by Joshua hanging out on the west side of the Jordan River at the house of a prostitute in Jericho named Rahab.  The passage does not say whether Joshua sent out these spies at God’s direction or his own desire for more certainty about crossing the Jordan.  Certainly Moses sent out spies in the past.  It seems that Joshua was one of these spies, but given the fact that God did not allow Moses to cross over the Jordan he may not be the best role model in this respect.

Apparently God’s reputation and the reputation of the Israelites precedes them. The King of Jericho has gotten wind of their presence and it seems everyone has heard about the way God had the Israelites back at the Red Sea.  The parting of the Red Sea, as we explored in a previous post, is actually described here as a drying up of the water of the Red Sea. Either way it seems that the event involving the Israelites escaping the Egyptians by crossing the Red Sea on dry land is well known in the region.  The conquering of the two kings on the east side of the Jordan River is also widely known and striking fear in the hearts of those on the west side.

This brings up an interesting point about reputations and what we are known for as Christians both individually and collectively in our churches. Does our reputation precede us, and if so is that a good thing?  Reputations are a delicate thing.  Many years of careful following can be spoiled by a few bad choices.  I can remember the scandals in the late 1980’s that rocked the televangelist world.  I know the actions of those Christians affected my early walk with Christ as I struggled to make sense of how the God I had chosen to follow could allow someone to get so lost.  The conclusion I came to is that God gives us the freedom to be idiots with our faith if we choose.

So what should we be known for as Christians?  My hope and prayer is that I will be known as a faithful follower of God, an encourager, and a person who is open to knowing and being known by those around me, both fellow Christians and those who may not have met Him yet.  I would hope the same for a Christian Community, namely that our first job would be to faithfully follow God, followed by encouraging one another, then by knowing and being known by our community and each other (including spiritually curious God seekers).

Prayer: God help us to follow you with faithfulness, encourage one another, and introduce You to those who have not met You yet. 

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