“Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.’”
~ Joshua 3:5
Hi James and Ellen,
God has done many amazing things for your grandmaa and grandpaa. An amazing thing often is the timing of when something happened. It can be something that cannot be explained – unless we say that only God could have caused it to happen. God wants to do amazing things for you, for your ma and dad, for your grandmaa and grandpaa and for all the guys, gals and kids who He has chosen to be His. Today in Joshua 3 we see how God did an amazing thing for His specially chosen people – the Israelites. When you go to the Brandywine Zoo, your ma and dad park their car near the Brandywine River. The Brandywine River is not a very wide river. Your grandpaa thinks that the Jordan River may be about as wide as the Brandywine River. Would you like to walk across the Brandywine River someday? It would be even a lot harder to walk across the Brandywine River after a lot of rain has fallen in the area where you are living in Delaware. Suppose one day as your ma and dad are taking you to the Brandywine Zoo and just as your ma and dad are parking their car next to the Brandywine River, you notice that the Brandywine River no longer has any water in it – that you can easily walk across the Brandywine River without getting wet. Suppose there had been a torrential downpour that morning. Suppose the Brandywine River had been bank to bank full of very fast moving water when you arrived. If the Brandywine River suddenly did not have any water in it, that would be an amazing thing. This is what happened to God’s specially chosen people – the Israelites, when they had to cross the Jordan River. God’s specially chosen people – the Israelites, had been for about forty years walking around between Egypt and the land which God had promised to them. God’s specially chosen people had faced many obstacles over the forty years that they had wandered around between Egypt and the land which God had promised to them. God’s specially chosen people had one more obstacle to overcome before they would finally be in the land which God was giving to them to live in as their very own land. Do you know what an obstacle is? An obstacle is something which keeps you from going where you want to go or doing what you want to do. The Israelites had finally arrived at the Jordan River. The Jordan River was keeping the Israelites from being able to enter the promised land. The Israelites did know how to cross the Jordan River. There were no bridges. It had been raining. The river was deep and flowing really fast. There were not just guys, but gals and kids like you and old people like your grandmaa and grandpaa and animals and . . . the Israelites were facing a big obstacle when they arrived at the Jordan River. What could they do?
What should we do when we face an obstacle? We can pray to God – to ask Him for His help. When we do this, we believe that God can and will overcome any obstacle for us. God wants us to show to Him our faith that we believe that He will overcome any obstacle that He has put into our lives’ paths. Your grandpaa can tell you story after story of how God overcame obstacles that He had put in the lives’ paths of your grandmaa and grandpaa. Your grandmaa and grandpaa were tasked to begin a Bible training program in Bolivia. Your grandpaa asked for ideas from the other missionary guys on the South America Mission missionary team about beginning a Bible training program, about what kind of training program to have, about how the training program classes could be taught, about where to have the training program and . . . after deciding where to have the Bible training program and after settling on having eight students enter the program a year to study for two years, two pickups were loaded up with some tables and chairs, some students and their families and your grandmaa and grandpaa and we all headed for Concepción – which is where it had been decided to have the resident Bible training center. It took the two pickups at least eight hours to make the trip from Santa Cruz to Concepción. The two pickups had to be taken across a very wide river – the Rio Grande, in two small boats. Two men who your dad knows real well – Juan and Jaime, each drove a pickup. It was the rainy season. The small streams were full of water. There were a couple of times when crossing a small stream that Juan and Jaime had to take off their pickup’s fan belts as they did not want to have water sprayed by their pickup’s fans over their pickup’s motors while going through a stream. The streams did not stop flowing for us. The amazing thing is that we made it to Concepción without any trouble. We also were able to start the Bible training program. Your grandmaa and grandpaa heard later that as we were driving out of Santa Cruz that someone said no one can just load up two pickups and start a Bible training center. God did an amazing thing for your grandmaa and grandpaa when we were able to begin the Central de Capacitación in Concepción.
When the Israelites got to the Jordan River, they could have said we cannot go any further. God’s specially chosen people instead listened to God. They believed God. Verse 5 says “Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.’” We are to be prepared for God to do amazing things. We need to ask God to go before us. God years earlier had asked the Israelites to make what was called the ark of the covenant. God’s presence was in this ark of the covenant. God asked Levite priests to take the ark of the covenant to the edge of the Jordan River. He asked the priests carrying the ark of the covenant to be the first to go into the deep, fast moving river. What do you think happened next? Just as the first priests put the soles of their feet in the water, the river stopped flowing and all the people crossed through the river on dry ground. God did a really amazing thing for the Israelites that day. Look forward to times when God does amazing things for you.
Joshua 3 (15)