DO YOU REMEMBER?
A stone…it can mean many things to many people. For some, it’s an architectural tool, for others, something to throw in a lake on a lazy day, for some it can be a stumbling block and yet for the others it can remind them of something that so profoundly changed their life, their way of thinking.
One day, thousands of years ago twelve men were told to each pick up a large stone. This wasn’t to be any stone but one that would have an impact on generations to come. What made these stones special? Valuable? It was what they would represent…the unending faithfulness of their God. It was a day they would hopefully never forget and it was these stones that would help them remember.
After 40 years of wandering in the desert, the moment had finally arrived for the Israelites to enter the Promise Land. In order to get there, God would reveal his power to them once again and show them that it is He who has their future in His hands. Before the fall of Jericho they had to cross the Jordan River. It was at flood stage and God did what He does best…the impossible. Just like the past generation of Israelites, he began their journey with an amazing miracle…he dried up the Jericho River and allowed them to cross on dry land. He commanded twelve men, one from each tribe, to gather a stone from the middle of the Jordan River to use as a memorial to future generations of the provision of God.
“And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Joshua 4:20-24
Sometimes it’s easy to forget all that the Lord has done on our behalf, the miracles along the way and how He has consistently walked with us through this journey called life. My in-laws were over the other day and we began to talk about my upbringing and the journey that my family went through in my teens years. As I was communicating some life changing events, I began to reflect on how much God really did have his hand on my life. Things that I had forgotten or taken for granted or didn’t even see as I was going through them I now realize that it was God who had moved on my behalf. I need to make my own “Stones of Remembrance” so that when another difficult time comes in my life I will look back on these stones and know that God does have my life in His hands…that I can trust him. So that when people look at my life they will know that the “hand of the Lord is powerful.”
