Handouts
This week is on Joshua 17:14-18:
These verses interested me when I read them. There was a section of the Promised Land that got divided up amongst the tribes of Israel after they took it, but the rest was still held by foreign tribes. When one of the tribes began to get too populous for their free land, they began to demand more land from Joshua. Because the Promised Land is free, right?
Joshua is funny to our modern ears. He basically told them "If you want more land, go work for it." So the tribe was like "But it's hard. And the easier part has people with weapons and stuff in it. Giv us teh moneh." So Joshua has to give them the "Life is hard" speech and remind them that God had already promised to turn the land over if people would take it. Regardless of all of the trees that had to be cut down and rocks that needed to be dug up, and regardless of the mean guys with pointy weapons standing in the already cleared part with their menacing chariots, they'd succeed if they'd put in the effort.
I had a good talk last week with some colleagues who grew up under communism in Eastern Europe. They were talking about how nobody treated any of their stuff with respect, because it was the state's problem. If you were a farmer, you wouldn't maintain your tractor, because it wasn't *your* tractor. It belonged to the state, and if it broke, it was the state's responsibility to get you another. If your house was falling down, you didn't fix it, because if it broke the state would move you someplace newer. But don't we get like that with God, sometimes, taking our blessings for granted because we didn't have to work for them?
Sometimes I think God still asks us to work for his blessings, even if we can't earn them, so that we value them more. A struggle to master an addiction, or conquer some element of bad character, or get control of your finances means so much more when we've had to struggle with it than if it just happens while we're asleep. God had already blessed the Israelites with more territory. Instead of taking their success and reinvesting it in claiming more territory, they were looking for another handout. It's a bad cycle to get into. Civilizations have crumbled over mindsets like that. God doesn't want that kind of passivity for his people.
If there's an area of your life you're stuck in, is there anything you can do to take more territory to get ahead? I'm not talking about literally killing people and their families like Joshua was. I mean, is your point of stagnation a result of God wanting you to value that next allotment of his blessing? It's worth meditating on. God gives us his unmerited blessings in so many ways, but sometimes he wants us to play along and become stronger in the process.
The people of Joseph said to Joshua, “Why have you given us only one allotment and one portion for an inheritance? We are a numerous people, and the Lord has blessed us abundantly.”
“If you are so numerous,” Joshua answered, “and if the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go up into the forest and clear land for yourselves there in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaites.”
The people of Joseph replied, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the plain have chariots fitted with iron, both those in Beth Shan and its settlements and those in the Valley of Jezreel.”
But Joshua said to the tribes of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh—“You are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have chariots fitted with iron and though they are strong, you can drive them out.”
These verses interested me when I read them. There was a section of the Promised Land that got divided up amongst the tribes of Israel after they took it, but the rest was still held by foreign tribes. When one of the tribes began to get too populous for their free land, they began to demand more land from Joshua. Because the Promised Land is free, right?
Joshua is funny to our modern ears. He basically told them "If you want more land, go work for it." So the tribe was like "But it's hard. And the easier part has people with weapons and stuff in it. Giv us teh moneh." So Joshua has to give them the "Life is hard" speech and remind them that God had already promised to turn the land over if people would take it. Regardless of all of the trees that had to be cut down and rocks that needed to be dug up, and regardless of the mean guys with pointy weapons standing in the already cleared part with their menacing chariots, they'd succeed if they'd put in the effort.
I had a good talk last week with some colleagues who grew up under communism in Eastern Europe. They were talking about how nobody treated any of their stuff with respect, because it was the state's problem. If you were a farmer, you wouldn't maintain your tractor, because it wasn't *your* tractor. It belonged to the state, and if it broke, it was the state's responsibility to get you another. If your house was falling down, you didn't fix it, because if it broke the state would move you someplace newer. But don't we get like that with God, sometimes, taking our blessings for granted because we didn't have to work for them?
Sometimes I think God still asks us to work for his blessings, even if we can't earn them, so that we value them more. A struggle to master an addiction, or conquer some element of bad character, or get control of your finances means so much more when we've had to struggle with it than if it just happens while we're asleep. God had already blessed the Israelites with more territory. Instead of taking their success and reinvesting it in claiming more territory, they were looking for another handout. It's a bad cycle to get into. Civilizations have crumbled over mindsets like that. God doesn't want that kind of passivity for his people.
If there's an area of your life you're stuck in, is there anything you can do to take more territory to get ahead? I'm not talking about literally killing people and their families like Joshua was. I mean, is your point of stagnation a result of God wanting you to value that next allotment of his blessing? It's worth meditating on. God gives us his unmerited blessings in so many ways, but sometimes he wants us to play along and become stronger in the process.
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