"the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Aragah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho." Joshua 3:16
Water gives life. The flow of a river is what helps keep it alive and fit for life. The ebb and flow prevents stagnancy and helps measure and keep the rhythm God created. (Have you ever seen a pond that just sits? Gross.)
In this particular passage, we are getting the account of the Israelites FINALLY crossing the Jordan River into the promised land. After 40 years of wondering, complaining, learning about God, they are about to step into what was promised them decades and a generation before. Just as they had escaped Egypt and the Egyptian army via crossing a river on dry ground, God once again challenges the courses of nature He Himself set in motion to bring forth a promise to His people. I wonder why we don't talk about this parting of the waters as much as the first? Is it because walking across a riverbed on dry ground is old hat on the second go round?
Aren't we all like that with God's promises and His greatness? I know I am. I am so unfaithful to the Lord. Perusing the previous devotions for 3:16 I read things that I need to read again. things I fully believed at the moment, but didn't hang on to. Why is that? Why am I so weak? So faithless? So inconsistent?
I know part of the answer is my human sinfulness. However, I am a new person in Christ. The Israelites were God's chosen people. Yet I, like them, often overlook God's miracles and power even when they are right in front of me.
That's why I'm grateful for the opportunity to sit, read, meditate and reflect on passages like this. I blow by them too often, losing the full impact. It is a great reminder of the awesomeness of God. The love of His character. The grace He pours out when the river dries up.
I highly recommend you go back and read the full section of this story - found in Joshua chapters three and four. And that you reflect on and pray over what God is revealing about both Himself and us in these passages. Then let those truths sit in you and change you.
"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 4:24
Tracy
