“But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.”
~ Deuteronomy 3:28
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever been stranded someplace? Have you ever had to wait after school – after your classes were out, because your dad and/or ma had not yet shown up in their car to pick you up? If you have had the experience of being stranded, how did it feel? How did it feel to really want to go home from school but your dad and/or ma have not shown up yet in their car to pick you up to take you home? How does it feel to really want to do something but you just cannot do it because the circumstances around you just will not let you do it? How does it feel to really want to do something but you just cannot do it because you have done something that is stopping you from doing what you would really wanted to do? How does it feel to really want to go outside for recess but because you did something that your teacher did not want you to do, your teacher has you sit at your desk through the recess time while all the other kids in your class are playing outside? Your grandpaa does not remember a time during the years that he was in grade school of having any of his teachers tell him that he had to sit at his desk during a recess time because he had done something that one of his teachers did not want him to do. Your grandpaa does remember of often having to wait after the classes were out for the day at Volga Christian School – which is the grade school that your grandpaa went to from second grade through eighth grade, for Mrs. Hodorn to finally show up to pick up your grandpaa and his siblings, her own kids, the Meyar kids and John Stoman’s kids. Your grandpaa always liked to get home as soon as possible from the grade school where your grandpaa went to as a kid so that he could . . . there was always something for your grandpaa to have fun doing on the farm that he grew up on as a kid.
Your grandmaa and grandpaa when they lived in Bolivia became stranded a number of times. Your grandmaa and grandpaa will never forget the time when they were stranded on one of the trips that they were making between Santa Cruz – which is where South American Mission’s mission base is located and where most of the missionaries who are on the South American Mission missionary team live, and Concepción, Ñuflo de Chávez – which is where your grandmaa and grandpaa were living while they were administrating the rural resident leadership training and Bible education program. To get from Santa Cruz to Concepción, Ñuflo de Chávez, your grandmaa and grandpaa had to go through an area called Okinawa. Okinawa is located near the Rio Grande river. Your grandpaa in order to cross the Rio Grande River would drive the white C-10 Chevrolet pickup that your grandmaa and grandpaa owned into a flat bottom boat that was tied by ropes to thick sticks that had been driven into the sand at the edge of the river. Three or four guys would then pole, push and pull the flat bottom boat up and across the Rio Grande. A stretch of dirt road that began about ten kilometers before the Rio Grande that went through Okinawa was at times very difficult to get through. This stretch of dirt road during the dry season would become covered with a thick layer of dust. This same stretch of dirt road during the rainy season would become impassable because the dust would turn to thick muck. On one the trips that your grandmaa and grandpaa were making to Concepción, Ñuflo de Chávez from Santa Cruz to, your grandmaa and grandpaa found this stretch of road that went through Okinawa to the Rio Grande impossible to pass through without the help of a guy using a tractor who – for some money, was would be willing to pull their pickup through the worst spots. Less than halfway through this really mucky, muddy stretch of Okinawa road, the tractor that was pulling the pickup that your grandmaa and grandpaa owned bogged down. The guy driving the tractor could not go any further with just his tractor pulling the pickup that your grandmaa and grandpaa owned. Your grandmaa and grandpaa had to wait and wait for what seemed like forever before the guy with the first tractor returned with another guy with his tractor to pull the pickup that your grandpaa and grandmaa owned through this really bad mucky stretch. While your grandmaa and grandpaa were waiting in their pickup for the first guy with a tractor to return with another guy with a tractor, they watched vehicles being pulled by tractors going the opposite direction on the mucky, muddy road. One of the tractors that went by as your grandmaa and grandpaa were watching was pulling at one time two contraband Volkswagen Beatle Bugs. As the two Volkswagen Beatle Bugs being pulled by a tractor passed by where your grandmaa and grandpaa were stranded, a guy who was a passenger of one of the Volkswagen Beatle Bugs waved to them making your grandpaa feel even more helpless as all he could do because of being stranded by thick sticky mucky mud was watch what was happening around him not knowing if . . .
Moses found himself stranded on the other side of the Jordon River from the land area that God had told His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals, that they would always have to live in as their very own land if . . . Deuteronomy 3 tells about Moses having God give him the chance to see Canaan – the land area that God had told His specially chosen guys and gals that they would always have to live as their very own land if . . . God would not allow Moses to go into this land because he had done something that God had told him not to do. God in verse 28 tells Moses, “But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.”” Sometimes God will strand a guy or gal because he or she is not obeying Him and He has to teach the guy or gal a lesson. Sometimes God will strand a guy or gal to teach the guy or gal to learn to trust in Him. Be prepared for God to strand you at times – because He will.
Deuteronomy 3 (405)