Thoughts for another day

Nov. 12, 2012.

Today's verse: Joshua 3:3,4.  When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God being carried by the levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it, so that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before. (NRSV – copyright acknowledged)

(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

There's always a first time in life: first time you got a job, first time you became a parent and so on.  Men survive on the challenges offered by the first time and it's the experience of the first time that can carry us forward to other times and keep us afloat in those other times.

The first times can be quite scary; ask those who have gone away from their homes the first time for maybe education elsewhere or work of even a school camp.  There's so much uncertainty; the road isn't known and each moment one doesn't know what to expect.  It gets even tougher for you don't know how to react to a particular situation or stimulus.  At the time when the Israelites were about to cross over the Jordan enroute to Jericho, they didn't know what their fate would be or what they would encounter.  Moses was dead and though they had seen Joshua with him, they would still have harbored doubts about Joshua because the job on hand was so overwhelming.  Obviously, they would be both skeptical and fearful for they knew they had many enemies around them and they really were not equipped to fight them.

It's then that through the working of the LORD God, the people assigned to command the Israelites went forth telling them the Word of our Scripture today.  In it they were reassured that their God who had been with them throughout the forty years they spent in the desert was with them even now. They knew they could trust Him.  God was so kind and merciful to them that He indicated, that through the Ark of the Covenant, He would guide them to where they needed to go for they knew not the place as they had never passed that way before.  God's reassurance through this Word was I'm sure comforting and gave them peace even though they knew not what they were to face.  And today too, God advises us:  I have given you My commandments, follow them; for you know not the ways of life; and they will lead you on.  I believe its best we do that, even though it may not be easy and we may fall, for eventually, His commandments will lead us HOME.