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…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”...
And they are there to this day (Selected portions of Joshua 4:1-9).
God knows
that we are a forgetful bunch. A crisis
comes and so we pray and ask for help.
The help comes, the crisis passes and then we sort of forget about
it. Then the next crisis comes and we
act as if we have never seen God act before.
We worry and fret that he cannot help us through this huge problem, but
he does… and then we sort of forget about it again.
That is why
we need some monuments in our lives that jog our memories. We need some things that we can look back on
and say, “God was at work there”. That
was the purpose of the rock monument that God had Joshua build. They needed a reason to retell the story. He essentially tells them, “When your
children ask about that pile of rocks, tell them the story of how God took care
of you”.
I hope that
you have stored up some monuments in your life that remind you that God is good. They could be certain people (parents,
grandparents, friends, ministers), experiences (mission trips, Bible schools,
times at camp), places (a specific church building or a neighbourhood) or even
passages of scripture that inspire you. Whatever
those things are, it is important to re-visit those monuments and re-tell their
stories often.
I hope,
too, that when 2012 ends, you will have added a few new monuments. You see, God’s work did not end “back
there”. He is still active, near and
watching over his people. If we keep our
eyes open, if we trust and are led by him, this year could be filled with new stories
to tell and great things to remember.
Remembering
that “He was there” assures us that “He will be there”.
Comments