"Here comes the sun. . ."

Yeah for a sunny Thursday!


Here's the question and answer from yesterday:
Weds, Apr 1 Where does the salvation of the righteous come from? (Ps 37)
Psalm 37:39 The salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD; he is their stronghold in time of trouble.

And here's the question of the day:
Thurs, Apr 2 What did the Israelites (finally) stop eating after coming into the Promised Land? (Josh 5)


And here's the reflection of the day:
In the reading from Joshua 4, we see Joshua--the new, young punk who has replaced the wise and seasoned Moses--beginning to emerge at Israel's new leader. What God does for the Israelites as they cross the Jordan River is both to increase their reverence for Him AS WELL AS to "exalt Joshua in the sight of all Israel" so that they would revere "him all the days of his life, just as they had revered Moses" (4:14).

The most interesting part (in my opinion) of this passage is the stones that each representative of the 12 tribes are supposed to carry to the camp and set them up as a memorial of how the waters of the river Jordan ceased so that the Ark of the Covenant and the Israelites passed by. It is to serve as a reminder--an object that a child might ask a parent about.

What sorts of memorials do you have hanging around your house? What sorts of things do kids (or even grown ups) ask about when they see them?

In my house, there's lots of clutter to look at--some meaningful clutter (like the cross on the wall given to me by the leader of a trip to Greece or the small statue of a Vietnamese woman from a friend who served as a missionary in Vietnam) and some meaningless clutter (that I really should just get rid of one of these days).

How do you remember the tremendous things God has done in your life? How do you keep those things in the forefront of your mind? How do you keep from forgetting God's faithfulness to you?

That is what the Israelites were most concerned with--or maybe what God was most concerned for the Israelites about: that they not forget WHO they are and WHOSE they are. Hence, the importance of the Exodus story which we hear repeated over and over again, and things like this stone memorial. These are the things which are meant to endure for generations, stories to be handed down from parent to child.

That's how to keep the faith alive--passing down the stories. That was a main concern of Deuteronomy and is a similar concern of Joshua. And it is a concern of Jerome Creach, who dedicated his commentary on Joshua to his own children.

How do you keep the story alive?

Allison