Take a Minute -- Saturday, 5/21/10 -- STAYING IN FOCUS -- Joshua 4:1-3
J.R. & Bonnie Ricks
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STAYING IN FOCUS -- Joshua 4:1-3 NIV
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 stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight."
Okay. The Israelites are across the Jordan. They came across on dry ground, demonstrating God's great power to them and building their formidable reputation with the inhabitants of the land. These guys are not to be messed with!
They probably didn't look like much. After all, they'd grown up living in tents all over the wilderness. Not much time for the finer things in life, like nice clothes, fancy armor, high tech weapons, good haircuts. Not dirty or anything, because they were really into clean. But not fancy by any means.
And they were probably getting pretty antsy. After all, they had been ready the day before when Joshua had made them stop and listen to what God had to say. Then they had seen that fantastic miracle of the Jordan being stopped in its tracks. They had to be on a spiritual high. They were definitely on the mountaintop. They were ready to take on anything the inhabitants of this land had to dish out. They were primed. They were ready. They were set on "go".
And God said, "Nope. Not yet, folks. I want a monument built before you do anything else." His instructions were that twelve men (one from each tribe) should get twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River - from the spot where the priests were standing with the Ark - and build a monument on the bank of the river marking the spot where they crossed. The people probably thought, "Hey, this could wait until later, couldn't it? We've got battles to fight!"
No, it couldn't wait until later. Why? Because later they wouldn't remember how high they had been. Later, they'd find some other excuse to put it off. Later, they would forget completely.
You and I are the same. We get to the top of a spiritual mountain. We're flying high. And within days, we've forgotten what God did for us. We're so low, we can't even remember. But if we would stop at that moment, at that high and glorious moment, and build a monument - something as simple as a brief note about what God just did that we stick on our bathroom mirror - when we eventually come down off the mountain, we can look at the monument and remember. If we wait, life will get in the way, and we won't remember what happened well enough to write the note... or to build the monument.
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