Anyway, time marches on. That's a pretty easy and obvious statement and truth. No matter what we do, we can count on the sun rising again the next day after 24 hours, unless Jesus decides to come back the next day. We grow old and age, and the old axiom holds true, the only certain things in life are death and taxes.
I'm on the cusp of a new stage in life. An odd transition from a full time student to a part time barista, to hopefully in the next couple weeks, a full time employee of something that pertains to science and what I spent the last four years studying. I have been praying about interviews and job leads and all that stuff, and it's been accompanied by varying degrees of anxiousness. At the same time, several of my closest friends that have been with me for the last 4 years are about to peace out as the academic year comes to a close, and they finally meet me in the club of people who hold bachelors degrees, or I'm about to leave younger friends who still have a year or 2 or 3 or 4 before they can join the club. My life is about to undergo a paradigm shift if you will (if you don't know what that means, go look it up). For me, at times like these, God slowly morphs more into an advice bank rather than the Lord of my life. I want clear cut easy answers, to know the exact path in life to take, and while I believe that God has a plan for my life, I believe that it is impossible to seek that plan without seeking Him first.
When a new phase in life is about to begin, I always look to Joshua 1 for encouragement. If you're not familiar with the passage go read it. I'll wait patiently. OK got it? Just in case you didn't, I'll sum it up for you.
Essentially, Joshua is now in charge of the wandering Israelites after Moses bites the dust, and God is telling Joshua over and over again "to be strong and courageous." Joshua has giant shoes to fill. He's replacing Moses. You know, 1st ballot Jewish Hall Of Famer Moses, the self proclaimed "Humblest man on Earth" (Numbers 12:3 look it up. It's hilarious if you think about it). Anyway, I imagine that Joshua was looking forward to this day with an uneasy amount of anxiety and anticipation. He was waiting in the wings, waiting for his shot and now that day is here. He is to lead an unorganized, unruly people on a great military campaign through the promise land who didn't really enjoy listening to Moses, despite the fact that they saw him part the Red Sea, magical bread appeared every morning, and his face glowed after he talked to God.
God's advice to Joshua of being strong and courageous doesn't seem all that inspirational on face value. It sounds like something you could find out of the latest self help book. But look closely and see where Joshua will be drawing his strength from. First, God tells him to obey the law that Moses had given him in verse 7. God tells him in verse 9, "the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
I don't want to draw to many parallels between my life and Joshua, because I feel like that would be doing Joshua a great injustice, but let's look at what we can learn from this.
When God tells you that he'll be with you, don't take that lightly. For 40 years, God was physically with the Israelites as a giant pillar of fire or pillar of cloud depending on the time of day. Jesus tells us in the great commission that he, "will be with you always, to the very end of the age." Romans 8:11 says that the very same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us.
God isn't telling Joshua to be courageous for the sake of being courageous. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. He is telling him to be strong because the God who is with him is the one true God, the one who is good, the one who is almighty, the one who is eternal. We are strong because Christ is strong enough to conquer death and rise up from the grave so that we can stand clean and blameless before the Father.
That sounds nice doesn't it? Sounds like you could put that in a greeting card, or write it in an encouraging note to a friend. But don't neglect the first part of what God's advice to Joshua, keeping the law.
WAIT! Hold on a sec Phil. I thought you were one of those evangelicals with a protestant background who is always bashing the law. Hear me out. I think "keeping the law" gets a bad rap in today's Westernized Christianity, and no doubt, "keeping the law" can slip into legalism and all that nasty stuff. But I think that when the Israelites held to their notions of the law, it wasn't out of begrudging duty. The Law was their insight into the character of God. It pointed them to the holiness and perfection that is Yahweh. It's hard for us today to imagine anyone loving a rule book, but I don't think the Israelites saw the law as just a rule book. The law was their picture, there glimpse into the person of God. They were to obey the Law out of a love for the God who loved them, who created them and led them out of Egypt. For us, we must study God's word, understand what it says, understand why and how we know that God being with us is a good thing. So often we want to know God's plan for our lives without listening and talking to God. We don't engage God, we just hope that he will engage us.
Jeremiah 29:11 is fairly common in Christian circles, when God is telling Israel that he has plans for them. But it comes with the implication of verses 12 and 13, not so well known which says that Israel will call out to God and seek him with all their hearts.
See, I don't know where I'm going to be in 3 months. What I do know, is that God's will is going to be accomplished. It could be drastically different from what I want in life. My friends and surroundings will no doubt change. Time will march on. So what is my response? To seek God first. You can't know His plan without knowing him first. And quite frankly, if you don't know him, you probably won't like his plan anyway.
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