S145P2 – Lessons from Joshua: as He has done, so will He do
Jos. 3:14-16
So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. And the people passed over opposite Jericho.
I remember being very young in the faith and having question after question about everything I was learning. Something that I regularly heard were the testimonies from people about God doing great things in their lives. Sometimes these testimonies were simple in nature such as someone finding a job they desperately needed or experiencing a financial breakthrough. Other times, the blessings or events I heard attributed to God were much more miraculous in nature. I would ask people how they knew that it was the Lord who had moved in that instance. The most compelling answer I could receive was that He had shown himself already to operate that way.
What God did at the Jordan River was similar to what He did at the Red Sea. The circumstances were different, but He moved to accomplish the same purpose. In both instances, He was demonstrating his faithfulness to deliver his people and to uphold his promise. Just a few verses before this passage, God told Joshua that the event at the Jordan would symbolize him keeping his promise to drive enemy peoples from their midst. If they had any doubt that God would do this, the miracle at the Jordan River was to eliminate that doubt. He moved in a way that only He could move, a way that was so similar to how He had moved in the past, that they would know that it was him.
It can be easy to miss a move of God because we have not been paying attention to how He operates. The purpose behind understanding him and his character is so that we can recognize him. There is no way to emulate him without that. There is no way to follow him without that. We cannot live this life we are meant to live for his kingdom if we do not know him this intimately. We need to start paying attention to how He moves and recognizing when it is him. When we ask the question, his track record should show us the answer. Father, thank You for always being faithful and showing us who and how You are.