Flooded Jordan
Every morning at roughly 5:32 am Micah rolls out of bed to head to the shower and Cora rolls into bed next to me. She brings with her some kind of children's Bible. It's a tradition we started nearly a year ago: one morning she just showed up next to me and said, "I want to have devotions like you do. Can you read with me?" At first, if I'm completely honest, it felt like an intrusion. I wanted time to read my Bible, pray for a little while, and then maybe drift back to sleep for a few minutes before Micah came back to the room. She stopped coming for about three weeks and I missed her like crazy. I finally asked her why she stopped coming by in the mornings. She shrugged her little shoulders, and she hasn't missed a morning since.
This morning she brought a little picture Bible. We've been reading through it a page at a time for a couple of weeks. Today's story was about crossing the Jordan. The language is simple. The pictures are simple. And yet, as I read to her, I noticed something new. After she left the room I pulled out my Bible to read more of the story for myself.
The story of Joshua and the Israelites' last days of wandering in the wilderness is so familiar that I'm often immune to its details. They've become "Sunday school-ized" and lost some of their impact. But when I take time to really stop and think about what I'm reading, I realize how unbelievable many of these events must have seemed at the time. The crossing of the Jordan is no exception: the Levites stepped into the river with the ark, the water stopped flowing, and all of the people crossed on dry land. I stopped to really contemplate it for a minute, and I was amazed. This story of a crossing and the story of the parting of the Red Sea are like book ends to the Israelites' journey to freedom.
Amazing as it was, that wasn't the part that stood out to me today. It was this sentence, tucked into the middle of it:
"Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during the harvest season." (Joshua 3:15)
For forty years, the Israelites had wandered in the desert. Forty years. They'd waited all that time to come into the Promised Land. They could have crossed the Jordan at any time, and yet they arrive on its banks in the middle of the harvest season. In full flood state. Another version of the verse says that the "Jordan overflowed its banks all during the harvest." This was not just a little high water; this was massive flooding.
For as much as the Bible records the Israelites' grumbling and lack of faith in the face of other obstacles (they were all moaning and wishing they'd died in Egypt when they reached the shores of the Red Sea), there's not a word about their reaction in this passage. But I can imagine how they felt. "All this time--all this time--and NOW we're going to try to cross this river? Why not in the summer? Why not in the dead of winter? Why would we attempt something like this at the worst possible time?"
It made me think of Mary. I've often wondered how she felt about Jesus' birth. Maybe she was aware of the prophecies that said the Messiah would hail from Bethlehem, but my guess is that those words were nowhere on her mind when the labor pangs started in earnest miles away from her family and friends. What did she think? "Why is this happening now? Why here? Why would we attempt something like this at the worst possible time?"
These stories aren't isolated. Time after time, God seems to choose the "wrong" time, the "worst possible" time to do what he wants to do. At any other time, things might have been easier. They might have made more sense. They might not have needed a miraculous intervention.
But then, that's just the point. At any other time, we wouldn't have needed him. At any other time, we wouldn't have learned to trust him. At any other time, the event wouldn't have changed us, changed the world.
I don't know much about the timing of my life. But when I start to get panicky about my life's timeline, these stories give me hope, give me peace. God is not out to make my life more challenging. But he is out to use the challenges for something bigger. When the timing seems wrong--when the circumstance seems too difficult, too illogical--be ready. Because more likely than not, that is the time he will choose to move.
This morning she brought a little picture Bible. We've been reading through it a page at a time for a couple of weeks. Today's story was about crossing the Jordan. The language is simple. The pictures are simple. And yet, as I read to her, I noticed something new. After she left the room I pulled out my Bible to read more of the story for myself.
The story of Joshua and the Israelites' last days of wandering in the wilderness is so familiar that I'm often immune to its details. They've become "Sunday school-ized" and lost some of their impact. But when I take time to really stop and think about what I'm reading, I realize how unbelievable many of these events must have seemed at the time. The crossing of the Jordan is no exception: the Levites stepped into the river with the ark, the water stopped flowing, and all of the people crossed on dry land. I stopped to really contemplate it for a minute, and I was amazed. This story of a crossing and the story of the parting of the Red Sea are like book ends to the Israelites' journey to freedom.
Amazing as it was, that wasn't the part that stood out to me today. It was this sentence, tucked into the middle of it:
"Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during the harvest season." (Joshua 3:15)
For forty years, the Israelites had wandered in the desert. Forty years. They'd waited all that time to come into the Promised Land. They could have crossed the Jordan at any time, and yet they arrive on its banks in the middle of the harvest season. In full flood state. Another version of the verse says that the "Jordan overflowed its banks all during the harvest." This was not just a little high water; this was massive flooding.
For as much as the Bible records the Israelites' grumbling and lack of faith in the face of other obstacles (they were all moaning and wishing they'd died in Egypt when they reached the shores of the Red Sea), there's not a word about their reaction in this passage. But I can imagine how they felt. "All this time--all this time--and NOW we're going to try to cross this river? Why not in the summer? Why not in the dead of winter? Why would we attempt something like this at the worst possible time?"
It made me think of Mary. I've often wondered how she felt about Jesus' birth. Maybe she was aware of the prophecies that said the Messiah would hail from Bethlehem, but my guess is that those words were nowhere on her mind when the labor pangs started in earnest miles away from her family and friends. What did she think? "Why is this happening now? Why here? Why would we attempt something like this at the worst possible time?"
These stories aren't isolated. Time after time, God seems to choose the "wrong" time, the "worst possible" time to do what he wants to do. At any other time, things might have been easier. They might have made more sense. They might not have needed a miraculous intervention.
But then, that's just the point. At any other time, we wouldn't have needed him. At any other time, we wouldn't have learned to trust him. At any other time, the event wouldn't have changed us, changed the world.
I don't know much about the timing of my life. But when I start to get panicky about my life's timeline, these stories give me hope, give me peace. God is not out to make my life more challenging. But he is out to use the challenges for something bigger. When the timing seems wrong--when the circumstance seems too difficult, too illogical--be ready. Because more likely than not, that is the time he will choose to move.
