Today seeing Joshua’s response to the defeat at Ai was like watching a video of myself—“Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord…And Joshua said, ‘Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give them into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name? Joshua 7:6-9”

I was shocked to see Joshua respond in this way, because it was so like the rest of the people whose habitual response to adversity for forty years had been regret for having been brought out of Egypt and a desire to go back where they came from, even if it meant being mistreated slaves.

I was shocked, but I’m not sure why. He responded just as I’m prone to respond when things don’t turn out the way I expect them to. Though I am more discrete than Joshua was, my tendency is to go to the Lord and question why He ever led me to the place where defeat and disappointment came. If I’m not quick to let God correct my thinking, I almost always find myself wondering why I wasn’t content to stay where I was, doing what I had always done, rather than taking a risk on following God and believing Him for more.

This is our bent isn’t it? When life gets hard and expectations are shattered, we begin to crave the familiar, and so often that is a place of past bondage for us. It could be an addiction, a destructive relationship, habits that brought us heartache or behaviors that drive a wedge between us and those we care about. We know the pain we suffered there, but somehow convince ourselves that the pain is worth having the comfort of the familiar. We do, after all, know how to live with the pain, but not with what we perceive as an expectation never to be realized or a dream destined to die.

This is where Joshua’s heart was when he cried out, “Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan!” The unspoken implication of his words is that life would have been better if they had not pursued  the promise of God; that the people never should have followed God across the Jordan; that God had somehow been unfaithful, not only to them but to His promise to Abraham. It wasn’t blatant disrespect or lack of faith, but rather the unbelief spawned of fear, disappointment, and an utter lack of understanding why one’s faith has not been honored.

Have you ever been there? I certainly have, and not just once or twice. I’ve been there numerous times. What I am learning from God’s response to Joshua and from the history of Israel recorded for you and me is that when my expectations are shattered; when I feel that God has betrayed my trust; when the outcome of my pursuit of God’s will goes awry, my broken heart leads me to ask the wrong questions and jump to the wrong conclusions.

God’s Word shows me the wrong questions and the Spirit teaches me the right ones:

Instead of asking, “O Lord God, why have you” Joshua should have asked “O Lord God, what did we?” In Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy when the people feared dying in the desert, lacked water, and were bored with manna they, too, asked “Why, Lord” when they should have asked “What, Lord?”—What are you trying to teach us about yourself? What miracle are you about to show us? What will your faithfulness look like in this circumstance? What have we done to cause you to withdraw your blessing?

God is ALWAYS faithful—2 Timothy 2:13 tells us that. He cannot deny Himself so He is faithful to us, but also to His own character. He continues to drive this Truth home to my heart. He keeps teaching this lesson, and I know it is because I have not yet learned it well enough. I will know the lesson has found its home in my heart when I stop asking the wrong questions; when despite my disappointments, my fears and frustrations, and my total lack of understanding the why, I still consistently ask the right questions of my faithful God.

In 1998 God first began challenging my perception of how He viewed my thinking, behaviors, and responses to different areas of my life that I had not yet surrendered to Him. Though I knew what God’s Word says, I had subconsciously convinced myself that He understood and was, therefore, okay with several areas of my life that held me in bondage—that He was patiently waiting for me to get to the place where I could surrender these areas. There were three areas in particular, none of which seemed that big to me at the time—my angry responses to situations that “called for” an angry response; using food as a comfort (or as my grandkids say “my woobie”) for my pain, frustration, or stress because, after all, I wasn’t fat—yes I needed to drop a few pounds, but only a few, and I did pray as I ate; and my obsessive need to be in control of everything and everyone.

It was easy for me to look at others and see the unacceptability of what they viewed as acceptable sin—overindulgence in material things just because they had the money to buy them; participating in certain ungodly behaviors with ungodly people to “build a bridge” from which to share the gospel; conducting business according to the world’s standards, not God’s, because everyone knows that “good guys finish last in the business world”; or not giving to the Lord what is due Him because money is tight and “I just don’t have it to give.”

These are just a few of the ways that we justify our sin and in doing so make it acceptable to ourselves and sadly to others, as well.

One thing God has convinced me of is that He is dead serious about not tolerating sin; that He does mean exactly what He says; that He gives me time to repent when the Spirit convicts; and that just because I don’t see the consequences of my sin immediately, doesn’t mean God understands or is looking the other way or that I’m getting away with my sin this time.

As I read Joshua 7 this morning, I was convicted on a whole other level. My sin doesn’t just taint me. It opens the door for God’s judgment on those who are associated with me, as well, whether they have participated in the sin with me or not. My sin causes a breech through with Satan can enter and gain a foothold in my church, my family, my workplace, or any other people or places where I live life.

Joshua 7 is the account of Achan taking some of the spoils of war when God clearly told the Israelites to destroy everything. In Chapter 6 verse 18 God told the people to “keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction.” All that they were given permission to take was that which was not destroyable by the fire, but rather purified by it—gold, silver, bronze and iron—and those things were to go into the treasury of the Lord.

What Achan did was what we often do—he saw something he wanted (1 John 2:16 calls that the lust of the eyes) and decided it would be a waste to destroy it, so he took it for himself thinking that no one would be the wiser, even God.

In Joshua 7:10-15 God addresses Achan’s sin, but not as the sin of a single man—the “people of Israel” had transgressed the covenant that God made with them, the covenant to give them victory over all their enemies if they walked in obedience to Him; “Israel has sinned”; “they have stolen and lied.” One man’s sin brought guilt on the whole nation and caused the whole nation to suffer as they lost the battle at Ai.

We cannot think that our sin is private, that it only affects us and hurts no one else. We cannot think that God will always protect others from the consequences of our sin. Every day we see evidence of one man’s sin affecting many—just look at the economy and all who have lost possessions and jobs because of the greed of our government and businesses; look at children living without parents because of divorce or crimes committed by their parents or on their parents; look at businesses declaring bankruptcy because of one partner’s greed or dishonesty; look at hearts broken everyday because of the sin of others.

God isn’t unaware of our sin and He does deal with it and sometimes innocents get caught in the consequences of our sin. Sin destroys!! It causes God to withdraw His blessing, because when we sin it transgresses the covenant relationship we have with God. God gives us ample opportunity, just as He did Achan, to repent and come clean before Him and all whom our sin touched, but there are always consequences for sin. That is how we learn Biblical fear of God; that is how we learn the absolute necessity of walking in obedience to all of His commands.

Some sins may be acceptable to us, but sin is never acceptable to God. We have a responsibility to God and to others to hold each other accountable and allow others to hold us accountable. We cannot turn a blind eye or make excuses for our own sin or sin within our ranks. If we do God will surely deal with us in ways we will not find pleasant. We will experience the discipline of a holy God, and it will be painful.

What sins have you deemed acceptable? Are there commands of God that you think are no longer applicable? Are there scriptures that you read and think God really doesn’t mean what they say? Do you watch people who try with all their hearts to live the Word of God and find yourself thinking they are legalistic or at the very least a little “over the top”? Will you take God’s Word to heart and allow Him to transform your heart toward sin as His Spirit renews your mind?

I’ve put myself in the place of the people, trying hard to imagine what that time must have been like for them. I have tried to get inside Joshua’s head and heart, wondering how he must have felt to be leading these people into the Promised Land. What a range of emotions he must have experienced when finally the people listened to the Lord and to him! Did he relive the despair and regret of years before when the people rejected the good report that he and Caleb brought back and decided instead to stand with the ten who would not believe God?

I have replayed over and over in my mind’s eye the scene of the priests moving toward the raging waters of the Jordan with the ark of the covenant resting upon their shoulders. What great faith it must have taken for them to take those first steps in following the Lord into that river, not to mention continuing on as they got closer and closer to this body of water that was rushing down from higher ground. Joshua 3:15 tells us that it was harvest time and the river was so high that it overflowed its banks. The footnote in my Bible says this, “The Jordan’s swollen waters would have been considerably more daunting than the river at its normal 3 to 10-foot depth and 90 to 100-foot width.”

Joshua 3 is a bit confusing to me because verses 13 and 15 seem to conflict with one another. Since I am a parser of words, I have spent much time praying over and meditating on what these two verses say. Verse 13 says, “And when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing…” but verse 15 says, “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…”

Do those two scenarios seem to you to require two very different levels of faith? Maybe it’s just me, but it would require far less belief for me to dip a foot into the waters to see if they would part than it would for me to walk in and plant my feet there, knowing if God wasn’t true to His word I would be carried downstream to my death.

I don’t believe God’s Word is contradictory so I have to conclude this: when it says priests plural, it means just that—all eight feet were in the water and as soon as they were the waters parted. Put yourself in the place of the two priests in front. I can hear them praying as they walked toward the river, “Oh, Lord, please don’t fail us now.” Did they realize that they carried their protection on their shoulders; that because the presence of the Lord dwelt in the ark along with His law, they were safe?

We aren’t told how long those four faithful men stood there as the people passed through the bed of the Jordan. We don’t know what went through their minds as the last of the people stepped on the shore of the other side. We do know that they did not leave the river bed hastily, because they had to wait for the twelve men to come back across and take stones from “where the priests’ feet stood firmly. (4:1-3)” It wouldn’t surprise me if those four priests were so awestruck by the power of their God that they could have stood gazing at the miracle forever.

It’s good for us to gain perspective from these people who have gone before us, because whether we realize it or not, we all have a Jordan to cross on our way to the promised land of the abundant life in Christ. Many of us enter our Canaan after wandering in the wilderness of trials and tribulations that have challenged our faith and pressed us to the Lord as never before. Some of us enter as we step into the Jordan of faith trusting God to fulfill a passion in our heart or take us to a destination in business or ministry that He has clearly directed us to go. No matter what our Jordan is, we cannot safely cross it without the Lord going before us and holding back the rushing waters that the enemy will unleash to try to destroy us. We cannot cross it without being willing to first trust God enough to step into the waters that will surely demand that we be strong and courageous for the Lord our God is with us.

We have to be willing to step in and wait for God to part the waters, believing that no matter how long it takes He will be true to His Word, if we are indeed following Him.

I crossed my Jordan in 2003. I had been praying for a long time for God to show me more of Himself; for Him to transform my heart; for Him to teach me what a surrendered walk of faith looked like; to grow my intimacy with Him so that I was truly living the abundant life.  In 1999 through a heartbreaking family crisis God asked me to step into the raging waters of my Jordan and wait for Him to part the waters so that I could walk into the promised land with Him. God made me wait and trust through a series of one heartache after another until finally in 2003 the waters of my Jordan “rose up in a heap very far away. 3:16” and I crossed with God on dry land. My life has never been the same, nor has my relationship with God. He has truly brought me into a land flowing with the milk and honey of intimacy with Him.

Has God brought you to the banks of your Jordan? Will you step in and trust Him to part the waters so that you can cross into the promised land of the abundant life with Him?

I’m sitting on the banks of the River having my quiet time, and not coincidentally, my Bible is opened to Joshua chapters 3 and 4. Watching the river flow along transports my imagination to the banks of the Jordan. Try to envision with me the scene as the children of Israel prepare to follow the Lord into the Promised Land.

What must it have been like on that day as this mass of people and animals stood ready to go? Can’t you hear the parents calling to their children, speaking words of caution and encouragement, trying to keep them close at hand? Can you see the men herding the animals, maybe doing a head count, making sure no strays were being left behind? Can you imagine the carts piled high with all the supplies? I can almost hear the elders of the tribe as they pass through the people giving final instructions. Do you feel the surge of energy, both from excitement and trepidation?

These people were about to take the greatest faith step of their lives, but not nearly the step of faith and courage that the priests who would carry the ark would have to take. These four men would go before the people, trusting with all their hearts that God would be true to His word and part the waters of the Jordan River.

But the people had to trust, even when the miracle of the parted waters was right before their eyes, that God would and could hold those waters back UNTIL all of them had crossed over. Joshua 4:10 says, “The people passed over in haste.” When I read that I paused to ponder why. Had they been instructed to move quickly? Scripture doesn’t say that. Did their excitement of finally entering the land and seeing God’s promise cause them to move more swiftly than usual? Were they afraid the waters would come rushing down the river to consume them if they lingered too long in the river bed?

Were the ones further back just following the crowd in front that was moving in haste? God didn’t tell us why they moved in haste, so we don’t know.

I’ll tell you what I do know—I have a tendency to move in haste. My bent is to hurry up and get to where I’m going so I can get on with whatever it is that I’m supposed to be doing at the destination. I know, too, that when I move in haste I miss savoring the journey, and God seems to consider the journey a critical part of getting to the destination, because the journey is, after all, where we get to see the faithfulness of our God every step of the way.

I wonder what the people missed in their haste. They saw the power of God as He performed this awesome work on their behalf, but did the HUGENESS of the miracle and their God sink into their hearts? If fear is what carried them in haste, then what they saw was probably merely God’s hand of protection. If eagerness to see the land is what drove them to hurry, then many may have never looked at the wall of water rising high into the sky. If they were just moving with the crowd, then maybe all they saw were the backs of the people in front of them.

When we move in haste, we may get to the destination, but in our haste we often miss God. I know in my haste I miss more of God than I see. That’s why these days I am moving with God, but I’m not in a hurry for this leg of the journey to end. I want to see and know all of God that He will allow. I want to savor this awesome God who chose me as His own, sent His Spirit to live in me, came that I might have abundant life, and created beforehand good works for me to do. I want to be sure that when I get to whatever Promised Land He is taking me in this season of my life I have allowed the journey with Him to fully prepare me for what I find at the journey’s end.

Do you move in haste or do you savor the journey? If you tend to be in a hurry, can you see how you may be missing critical lessons the journey has to teach? Will you slow down with me and savor the One who is leading you to your destination?

I shared last time how God convicted my heart through the belief of Rahab, the prostitute, who absolutely believed in the power of a God she had only heard about. Her testimony surely emboldened and empowered the Israelites. I couldn’t quit thinking about why God had sent the spies to a prostitute. As I read and read this account it hit me that these people were camped in the same place they were in Numbers 25, Shittim. If you remember, this is where the men of Israel brought pagan prostitutes into the camp and God sent a plague that killed 24,000 people before my hero, Phinehas, left his prayer time and upheld the honor of the Lord within the camp.

So here they are in Shittim about to cross the Jordan and God shows them that He can use anyone for His purposes—even a prostitute. It crossed my mind that this might have been a test to see if these two spies would be tempted by being in a house of prostitution or would keep themselves pure and holy before the Lord. Did God use this prostitute to revisit on the people a remembrance of the way they had enraged God’s anger before? Scripture doesn’t tell us, but I don’t believe in coincidences. This place with its history and God’s leading the spies to a prostitute is somehow significant.

In Joshua 3 God tells the people to follow the ark of the covenant, because it was what symbolized to them God’s presence with them. So intent was He that every person individually follow Him that God instructed the people to follow from a half mile away. When I first read that I thought it odd, but then I realized that if the people crowded close to the ark only those in front would be able to see the ark, and consequently those farther back wouldn’t be following the ark at all, they would be following the people in front of them. What if the people in front failed to follow the ark? Then the whole nation would be going the wrong way. God gives us leaders, but we are always to be sure we are following God, not man!! The people had to follow God to get to the Promised Land, because “you have not passed this way before. Verse 4” God would show them the way, because they didn’t know how to get where He wanted them to go without Him.

The parting of the waters of the Jordan River was such a precious gift to this generation of Israelites. They had only heard about the parting of the Red Sea, and here God is reenacting for this new generation that awesome, mighty show of His power. God showed me so many truths about this that I’ll have to share them in future blogs, but the Holy Spirit enlightened my heart to grab hold of one truth I’ve never noticed before—when God parted the Red Sea He was delivering the people FROM their enemies, the Egyptians. They were moving away from those who had held them in bondage. When God parted the waters of the Jordan He was moving the people into position for defeating their enemies. The people were moving toward those whose evil practices could potentially put the people in bondage once again. God took them across the Jordan right into Jericho’s backyard.

When the Spirit opened the eyes of my heart to see that Truth, God spoke so clearly to me that whether he leads me to separate myself from those who would like to destroy the work God is doing in me and through me OR He leads me to the heart of enemy territory, He is equally capable of protecting me in either case. As long as I follow His lead as He goes before me, I am safe even if I die!!!

I have no idea what God has in store for me, but He is teaching me some profound truths that I sense are absolutely necessary for me to know so that I will be ready for whatever is to come. It’s exciting and scary at the same time, but I know I MUST figure out with Him how to live out these truths He is teaching me.

Did any of these observations and truths leave an especially strong impression on your heart? Will you spend time letting God show you why so that those truths become part of you? God is leading every one of His children somewhere, and we must be allowing the Spirit to ready us for whatever place He is taking us.

Let me elaborate: Those of us who believe that God is always at work on our behalf; that He does indeed answer prayer; and that He is fully able and willing to perform a miracle if it is required, can grow so use to seeing God at work that we often overlook the awesomeness of His deeds.

It seems that we “grow” to the place where we say we believe God provides for all our needs; that God is the One who gives the victory in the battles of life; and that He is the One who goes before us to lead us and make His way clear. Yet how often we grumble and complain about what He provides. How often we live as though we are defeated and have no hope. How often we live in doubt and fear of the way God seems to be directing us.

I stand guilty of all of the above!! It seems that part of our sinful bent (or at least mine) is to take for granted the good things the Lord has given, even as we (I) expect more from His hand.

When I read the familiar account in the second chapter of Joshua, I was convicted to the core by the faith of the pagan prostitute, Rahab. In Joshua 2:9- 11 she tells the two Israelite spies, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you…, and what you did to the two kings…whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted and there was no spirit left in any man because of you for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.”

The Israelites had SEEN the awesome works of the Lord before and after their deliverance. They had SEEN God’s presence among them and His miraculous provision for their every need. Yet they didn’t seem to have the depth of belief in their God that this pagan woman and her people did when they had only HEARD. Could it be the Israelites  had seen so much that they had “grown” to take the awesome deeds of their Lord for granted?

Have you noticed that when something is familiar to you, you often cease to pay it much attention? Things like food on the table, running water, and even the gift of God’s written Word. We know we have these things. We have SEEN God’s provision. We have SEEN His awesome deeds as He heals our diseases, protects us from our enemy, enlightens the eyes of our hearts to understand His truths, and so graciously answers the prayers we offer up to Him. We know the source of all these things, but somehow the more we SEE the more prone we are to lose a heart-felt appreciation and gratefulness for these gifts from God.

If you have ever been with people who have not, you know the wonderment in their eyes and their voices when they hear of all the good things we have from the hand of God. And we are the same, aren’t we, when we hear of the faith of those who have not received the bounty of tangible things that we have and yet have such a grateful appreciation of the little God has given them. It makes me wonder who has really received the bounty of our Lord!!

I can’t help but believe that God led these spies to Rahab because He knew His people needed the encouragement of this woman’s report to keep them from collapsing in fear once again. It makes me wonder why years before God didn’t send the twelve spies to someone like Rahab.

God convicted my heart in another way. In this account in Joshua 2, these men offered no recompense to Rahab for her kindness UNTIL she asked for it. What she asked for was her life and that of her family when Israel came to take Jericho. Her life would be spared because of the scarlet cord. (Don’t you love the symbolism of the OT that ever points us to the Lord Jesus Christ?)

Reading these verses flooded my mind with random remembrances of people who, over the years, have commented on events of my life—how I have been provided for, how I have overcome adversity, or how I’ve been blessed with people around me to offer support. Some of these people mentioned God in passing, as though they somehow knew a “higher being” was at work, but didn’t know the “being.” Others talked about God’s involvement in my life much like Rahab spoke of Him to the spies—having heard of His power, but never having experienced this God they probably didn’t know.

With those remembrances came the question of how many were seeking, through their comments, for me to “deal kindly (verse 12)” with them and show them how they, too, could have access to my God working on their behalf in the same way. I cringed as I thought of how many of those people received from me an acknowledgement of the great works of God on my behalf, but did not receive from me the testimony of the “scarlet cord” of the blood of Jesus Christ that the Spirit could have used to save them and make them a child of the Living God.

Have you seen so many awesome works of God that they have become common place to you? Are you taking what you have SEEN for granted?

Are you missing opportunities to offer the “scarlet cord” of salvation to the people God brings across your path?

We have so much to learn about God from the lives of both Moses and Joshua. Unlike us, God isn’t in a hurry. Both of these great spiritual leaders were in training for years and years—Moses as a shepherd for forty years, and Joshua for the years waiting for the first generation of Israel to die off.

In Joshua 1 God comes to Joshua and tells him that Moses is dead and it’s time for him to assume the leadership responsibilities. In verses 1-6 God promises to be with Joshua just as He was with Moses. I have no idea what kind of relationship Joshua had with the Lord to this point, but I couldn’t help but think that whatever it was like before, it was about to get far more intimate and personal.

God promised to give the land and the victory, but Joshua has a huge responsibility to the Lord and consequently to the people. In verse 6 God says to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous for you shall cause this people to inherit the land…” I found God’s choice of words very curious, “shall cause”, and had to stop to ponder and pray over those two words. God didn’t say “you shall lead my people into the land so they can inherit it.” He said, “You shall cause.”

As I prayed over that verse, the Spirit took my mind back to the first time the people should have gone into the land to inherit it. The people at that time were caused to be sent back to continue wandering in the wilderness, because of the fear, disbelief, and bad report of the ten spies.

God knew Joshua was leading a stubborn, complaining, discontent, and disobedient people who were so easily led astray. So it was of utmost importance that Joshua by his strength of character and faith and through his godly courage would cause them to enter the land as they followed his lead. For follow his lead they would! If Joshua succumbed to fear, disbelief, or discouragement so would the people.  Without his strong and courageous leadership they wouldn’t go into the land, and God knew it.

Joshua had a huge responsibility as leader of this people, but he also had a HUGE God. When I read verses 7-8, though, I see an even bigger responsibility placed on Joshua than leading the people, and God emphasizes this responsibility by two little words, “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Joshua wasn’t only a military leader, he was a spiritual leader, as well. God is emphatic that Joshua’s relationship with His God is the central core of everything else God has commissioned him to do.

We often forget that the same is true for us. We tend to compartmentalize our lives when it comes to the differing roles God has put us in, but for us to have success and prosper in every other role we play, our relationship with God must be our number one priority. God requires of us the same thing He required of Joshua—

*That we obey His Word to the letter. We aren’t given the option to interpret it or tweak it so that it suits us. Our responsibility is to be careful to apply it to the circumstances of our lives.

*We are never to forsake speaking God’s truths and teaching them to others. Even in situations where we are “gagged” from talking about scripture, we are still to speak Biblical principles into them. God’s ways work even when others don’t know they are God’s ways.

*Unless we spend time in God’s Word regularly and allow the Spirit to teach us Truth we won’t be able to meditate on it, and if we don’t meditate on God’s Truth, keeping it in the forefront of our minds, we won’t be careful to obey and walk in His ways. It is easy for us to believe that there are times when we are just too busy or too preoccupied to meditate on God’s Word, but obviously God doesn’t see it that way. No matter how busy, how intense the battle, Joshua was to be, and you and I are to be planning and preparing, reacting and responding, walking and working according to God’s Word and His ways.

This is a grave and great responsibility, but to have success and prosperity from God in all that we do, it is essential. That is why God bookend this responsibility with the same admonition and promise “Be strong and courageous.” Why? “For the Lord your God is with you.”

You and I are always influencing and leading someone, either actively or passively. Even when we aren’t in a formal leadership role, someone is watching us to see how we go about our daily responsibilities, how we treat others, how we respond to success and adversity, and what we do when we think no one is watching. How we live our lives “causes” someone to do what they do and influences how they will do it.

The question for each of us is: What are you causing others to do? Are you causing them to inherit the blessings God wants to give them or are you causing them to wander in the wilderness?

My sweet encounters are always initiated by the Holy Spirit and I recognize them coming, usually by the Spirit’s prompting me in one of two ways: sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks to my heart telling me that I need to read “that” again because I missed the point.  At other times He prompts me to close my eyes and envision the scripture passage I just read. Each time the Spirit takes me to a deeper understanding of who God is and the way He is working on my behalf in whatever circumstance I happen to find myself.

I had one such encounter a few days ago as I was reading the end of Deuteronomy.

I was lamenting the fact that Moses wasn’t able to enter the Promised Land, feeling that this was a bit of an injustice after all his years of faithful service. I know that when he struck the rock in Numbers 20 instead of speaking to it as God told him to do it was a grave sin. I understand that in that moment Moses didn’t uphold God as holy before this people who desperately needed to learn to relate to their God in all His holiness. I know that God is always just in His discipline, but that knowledge didn’t keep my heart from grieving for Moses’ loss. He wanted so badly to see the Promised Land.

As I read the final chapters of this amazing book, I realized that though Moses being denied entrance into the Promised Land was a discipline, it was also God’s protection for His faithful servant. Moses had been told the depths of depravity to which the nation would stoop as they whored after the gods of the pagan nations, but he would never have to witness it with his own eyes. What a greater heartbreak it would have been for him after leading these people to the border of the Promised Land to have to watch them squander the blessing of God’s promise in such vile ways.

It made me wonder how many times God has withheld from me a blessing I desired because He was protecting me from a greater heartbreak than the loss of the blessing. How many times have you felt that God wasn’t being fair to you as He denied you what you wanted so badly? Could it be that He was protecting you, too, from a greater heartache?

My tender, mind-blowing encounter came when I got to chapter 34. God told Moses earlier that he could go up on Mount Nebo and look at the Land from there. But when Moses got there, 34:1 says that, “the Lord showed him all the land.” From border to border God showed Moses the land and let him “see it with your eyes.”

This is where the Holy Spirit prompted me to close my eyes and envision the scene—God showing Moses all the land. With closed eyes I imagined God pointing out the borders of the land. I could almost see God taking Moses on a guided tour from afar, and hear Him telling Moses to “look at that tree, it’s a ____ tree.” And “Moses, see there? That’s grows ____ fruit.” Or “Moses, look at all the streams and wells I’m giving My people. Won’t they be so happy to have all this water?”  “And Moses see, there’s where the tribe of Judah will settle, and the tribe of Naphtali will be over there.” “Look there—that’s where the cities of refuge will be.” Or “Moses, there—see that place? That is where the tabernacle will be. That is where My people will come to bring their sacrifices and worship me.”

I have no idea what that time was really like, but it must have been an amazing, tender, intimate time for Moses as God showed him the Land of Promise.

Verse 5-6 says, “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land…” This was what left me in a puddle on the floor! I wrote so many questions in my journal about these two verses. With eyes closed, trying to “see” these two verses in action, I wondered if the Lord cradled Moses in His arms and sang songs of love over him as he died. Did our loving Heavenly Father stroke Moses’ head to comfort him? Did He speak tenderly to Moses of his faithful service for all those years?

I couldn’t help but wonder how God buried Moses. Did He speak to the earth He created and command it to open to form a grave for His precious servant? Or did God kneel down and scoop the earth away with His own hands? This is the picture I envisioned—God lovingly scooping away the dirt to make a place for His Moses to lie in rest. I wondered, too, if God blew the dirt over Moses’ body or if He picked it up by the handful, ever-so-gently laying it over Moses’ until he was completely covered.

Scripture doesn’t tell us the details, but it tells us enough to know that we have a far more intimate and personal God than we can ever imagine. Even as we testify to the personal relationship God desires to have with us and us with Him, I believe we are incapable of understanding the depths of intimacy God offers to us. We often talk about intimacy with God as we hold Him at arm’s length.

What I did see and learn from this last chapter of Deuteronomy is that you and I have an intimate, personal Savior, Lord, and Heavenly Father, and with all our hearts we should be compelled to walk with Him in a way that grants us all the intimacy that He desires for us to have with Him.

I love a good cup of coffee. I love the taste, but probably more than that I love the smell of fresh ground coffee beans and brewing coffee.

Recently I met one of my non-coffee drinking friends at a local coffee shop.

As she ordered her herbal tea she commented on the “glorious smell of brewing coffee.” My friend, like so many others I know (and don’t understand:)) doesn’t like the taste of coffee, but loves the aroma.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes my life seems to mimic the life of a coffee bean. God seems to throw me in the roaster of life and turn up the heat on a regular basis. What trying times those are—times that test my faith, burn off unacceptable behaviors, and force me to choose to either surrender to God’s will or fight against it.

When I’m in the fiery roaster of life I have learned to remember the incense and sacrifices that were burned in the Old Testament Temple as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. I can’t help but envision God inhaling deeply; taking in the aroma of this child who will come out of the “roaster” much more conformed to the image of His Son.

Our times in the roaster of life are meant to transform us into an acceptable sacrifice to God as we become “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. 2 Corinthians 2:15”

As my friend and I visited we heard the coffee grinder come on, and I knew a fresh pot of coffee was on its way. I thought about how those roasted coffee beans do indeed take us on a journey of intense olfactory pleasure, but the greatest pleasure of all is when those beans go into the grinder and come out to be combined with water that brings them to life and doubles the pleasure for us coffee drinkers—we get the awesome taste of a great cup of coffee AND the wonderful aroma at the same time.

The “roaster” of life is necessary to make us the fragrant aroma of Christ, but just as necessary is the “grinder” of life that can make us far more useable for the Kingdom of God.

You may know what it feels like when the circumstances of life grind you up and spit you out. Nothing feels more devastating. But you and I know, too, that going through the “grinder” of life can either leave us pitiful and bitter or it can make us what Paul describes in Philippians 2:17—a drink offering to be poured out in sacrificial service to God. You may have seen believers who have come out of life’s “grinder” at both ends of the spectrum.

The only difference is whether or not they, or we, choose to run to the living water of the Word and with great intentionality allow it to soak into our hearts, flow through the “grounds” of our lives, and transform us.

When that is our choice we become imitators of Christ, giving ourselves as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:2).

As we surrender ourselves, a sacrifice to God, we become not only a taste of the goodness of our God to those in our sphere of influence, but also a pleasing aroma even to those who aren’t “God drinkers”.  We are to live our lives in a way that draws others to God—those who are perishing to the Savior and those who are believers into a deeper relationship with their Lord.

My life isn’t always a pleasing aroma to God or anyone else—sometimes the way I respond to the events of everyday life in the way I act and speak is more of the offensive stench of a burnt coffee bean. My heart’s desire is to continually be a pleasing aroma to the Lord and for the Lord. I know for that to be, I must be a surrendered “coffee bean” in the hand of God, willing to be roasted and put through the grinder as He sees fit, and always running to the living water of the Word so that it can soak deep into my heart and flow through me into the lives of others.

How does being a “coffee bean” in the hand of God sound to you?