Battle of the Will

One of the best parts of my job is assisting with therapeutic horseback riding. While I know a little about horses, I don't even begin to consider myself a "horse person." My job during therapeutic riding usually deals with keeping clients in one place and encouraging communication.

This morning, as we were preparing for clients to arrive at the arena, one horse was being particularly obstinant. Our volunteer was working him in the round pin (again I don't pretend to be a horse person and have no clue exactly what she was doing except making him run around in circles.) Periodically, the horse would decide he was going to stop or turn around and go the other way. When he did this, the volunteer would make a particular movement and he would turn back the way she wanted him to be going. Brian, the social worker who helps, was sitting at the table watching. He commented "He thinks he's going to do it his way and she is not going to let him." Life lesson?

Tonight, I attended a Beth Moore Bible Study (Jesus the One and Only) session. Tonight's lesson was on Luke 22:39-46. Jesus time of prayer in the Garden was a similar battle of will. The will of His flesh wanted to turn and run the other way. He begged for God to "let this cup to pass over me," but the Son of God said "No, whatever you require of me, I will do."

Here's the cool part of the whole story. Just before we had the conversation about the strong willed horse, Brian asked if I had done anything else with that "internet thing." (That would be applying to Seminary.) He also said he had two papers to write for admission to graduate school, but he seemed to be procrastinating--possibly a subliminal message that he didn't want to do it. My quick response was "Maybe it's not about what Brian wants." Yeah, I turned it all around on Brian, in reality, I was probably saying "Maybe it's not about what Mandi wants."

Teach me to follow. Not my will but Yours.

Employee of the Year and So Much More

I work at an Intermediate Care Facility for the Mentally Retarded (ICF-MR) in Mississippi. Today we had our annual "Oktoberfest" celebration complete with carnival games, dancing, and staff gymnastics. The day concluded with our director awarding two Employees of the Year with money and a plaque from the facility's FRIENDS organization. Both the direct care staff and the professional staff that received these awards treat the clients as if they are family. They go out of their way to do whatever is needed and are often at the center even when they aren't on duty. When Dr. Rogers announced the names of the two Employees of the Year, the clients who they work closely with leapt with excitement. That moment told me that those two men deserved Employee of the Year and so much more.

"The king will answer, 'Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.'" Matthew 25:40 CEV

Hidden Treasures

Joshua 7

God specifically said everything in Jericho must be destroyed except for the gold, silver, bronze and iron, and that is to be given to the Tabernacle. But Achan wasn't listening.

After the fall of Jericho, Joshua sent spies to Ai. The spies came back saying 'No problem. There aren't very many people there, just a few thousand of us can take them.' So he sent those few thousand men to Ai and they became afraid. Thirty-six men were killed and the Isrealites lost their faith.

Now even Joshua began to blame God. 'Why did you have to bring us here, to kill us? We were just fine on the other side of the Jordan. It was nice enough. Now all the Amorites and Canaanites will hear this and they will come kill us.'

Wow, how many times, when things get hard, do I do the same thing? God wins a battle with Satan and I'm feeling good and suddenly something tries to kill me and all faith is lost. I begin to whine to God. "Now look. Everyone's going to see what happened and they're gonna start talking..."

God quickly called Joshua out of this despair. "Isreal sinned", God reveals, "they are cursed because they took what didn't belong to them--after I told them to destroy it." He continues to tell Joshua to get up and find out who did it and destroy those things or else they are on their own. Following God's commands, Joshua brough the people before him tribe by tribe, family by family, household by household, person by person. Finally, Achan was taken and when asked, confessed to taking silver and gold and hiding them beneath his tent. Everything that belonged to Achan, including his wife and children, were taken to the Valley of Achor, and they were stoned and burned. Destroying Achan and his property was the only way to destroy the sin in the tribe. Removing the sin was the only way for the people to be redeemed. Fortunately for us, Christ made that redemption possible for us. Through His death, our sin has been removed.

Notice that Achan hid the treasure? He wanted it so badly that he stole it, yet when it was his, he couldn't even enjoy it because he had to hide it to keep from being found out. I frequently read the blog Encouragement for Today by Proverbs 31 Ministries. In today's entry, Lisa Whittle talks about the secret thins in our heart--"those secret places that reside deep within our soul that we keep hidden from others and even try to hide from God?" She notes "The crafty, conniving one knows that if he can get us to continue to bury our secret places deep within our heart, we can’t be effective for God. He knows that thoughts of our private sins will eventually eat away at us, causing us to feel fraudulent and unworthy of the love and acceptance of others, and most of all, our Heavenly Father." Whittle goes on to remind us of the redemption we have in Jesus Christ and gives practical ways of combating those secret-keeping habits.

The people then built a memorial of stones in the Valley of Achor. This memorial reminded them that disobedience brings destruction, but also repentence brings redemption. In my Memorials post, I mentioned memorial stones in our spiritual lives. Brian commented, "...Some remind us of times when we were just plain stupid and others are very painful...." The memorial built in the Valley of Achor is one such set of stones. They remind Isreal of a time when they messed up and found themselves on their face in destruction. But when we look back on these stones, they also remind us of the forgiveness and mercy of Christ and what He brought us from.

Oh be careful little mouths what you shout (and when you shout it)

Joshua 6
All the Canaanites who lived in Jericho went inside the city walls and locked the gates because they were afraid of the Isrealites. God told Joshua to take all the men of war and march around the city once a day for 6 days and seven times on the seventh day. The priests were to take trumpets before the ark and play and on the seventh round on the seventh day, when the trumpets played a long blast, the people were to shout and the wall would fall. Joshua did as he was told and gathered the people. He told them "You should not shout or let your voice be heard, nor shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout!" (6:10)

I can imagine the tendency of the Isrealites. Maybe they were thinking, in the words of one of my all-time favorite Camp Lake Stephens campers, "My feet hurt. Bugs be bitin me. All we ever do here is walk. I'm tired of walkin. There ain't no roller-coasters here." Okay, maybe they weren't lookin for roller-coasters, but I can see a tendency to complain none-the-less. And Joshua knew them, he knew this tendency and he knew that there was no room for doubt. So he told them to be quiet until it was time to shout.

We can learn from Joshua's command. When you're facing challenges and trials, do not allow your lips to speak unbelieving words. When we refuse to speak doubt and fear, it keeps our heart more inclined to see what God can do rather than what we cannot.


Everyone and everything in Jericho was to be destroyed except that of Rahab and her family in her home. The only items that were not to be destroyed were the silver, gold, bronze, and iron which were to go to the treasury of the Lord's house. The Isrealites were to abstain from the accursed things because they were associated with pagan practices. After the walls fell, the Isrealites killed every person inside (except Rahabs family) and they burned the city.

Rahab's life and the lives of her family were spared because she spared the spies. She was adopted in to God's family, the Isrealites, and became a decendant of David and Jesus.

An Outward Sign

Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you."
(Genesis 17: 9-11)

Circumcision was a sign -- an outward, physical sign of a covenant between God and Abraham. God promised to bless Abraham, to make him the father of many nations, to be his God and the God of His decendants, and to give Abraham's decendants everlasting possession of Canaan. Abraham's part? Abraham was to trust God as his God--to follow and obey Him in trust to care for His every need. And, Abraham was to circumcise himself and every male in his family or possession, and every child born to his family when he turns 8 days old.

There was rules to partaking in the Passover. When God gave Moses and Aaron the regulations for the Passover, every male in the household must have been circumcized (Exodus 12). Now, Joshua is leading the Isrealites and it's time for the Passover, but none of the Isrealites had been circumcised since they left Egypt and all those who left Egypt had died in the wilderness. So Joshua circumcised this generation. That day, when the Isrealites performed the outward sign that they were children of God, God removed the shame of slavery from them. Then, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the plains of Jericho, the Isrealites celebrated Passover. As they entered into the Promised Land, they were reminded that this inheritance was because of their simple faith in the blood of the Lamb.

That day, the Isrealites ate food from the land and the manna stopped. In the Promised Land, God provided food from crops. The Isrealites no longer needed manna, but they would have to assume some responsibility to working the land to get their food.

"In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead." (Colossians 2:11-12)

We no longer have to be circumcised, but we do have to realize that we are free from the shame of sin. We need to realize that we are free and will receive the promises of God simply because of the blood of the Lamb.

Memorials

When all the people had crossed the Jordan, God had Joshua get 12 men to gather stones from the middle of the river to take with them when they camped that night. These stones were to be built into a memorial so the people had something physical to remind them about the wonders God had done that day. When their children saw these stones and ask what they mean, the people were to tell them of the time God stopped the waters of the Jordan river. (Joshua 4)

We too, put up stones as memorials. Cemetaries are full of them. Stones put up where we bury our loved ones and something is usually etched on these stones in order to remind us what they meant to us. Just as the Isrealites were told to remember and pass along to future generations what God did, we are to pass along to future generations what God has done for us--and we have memorials to remind us.

I recently went on a couple of memorial tours with my grandparents. The days were filled with cemetary tours (complete with my taking photos), but we did more than just look at peices of stone. At each stop, my grandparents would tell me stories of those whose names we read on the stones. "Grandmother was a lady. She always sat up straight and only crossed her legs at the ankles. The only negative comment I ever heard her make was if she was really frustrated, she would sometimes say 'well dog my cats." Not only were there scores of stories of people, which I only pray I remember long enough to write some of them down (really need to go on another trip so I can get these down), but there were stories of places. "I used to ride my bike down this road to school. My old girlfriend lived there. That's where my grandmother went to church." My grandparents made sure I knew that our family was made of believers. They weren't all happy stories, but they reminded me how Christ was always there for them. "That's the graves of your great-grandmother's sisters. They were killed in the tornado in 1936. That's where my brother and his fiance' died the day before they got married."

We also have memorials in our spiritual lives. People, places, dates, and things that remind us of significant events on our Spiritual journey. They aren't always happy memories, but they tell of a time when we experienced the move of God. I was going to list mine here, but I think that's another post. What's the purpose of these memorials? Theres two: 1) to remind you what God did for you and 2) so when your children ask "what's that?," you can tell them what God did for you and they too will know God is real and His hand is mighty.

You want me to go where?

I often wonder about the thoughts of people in the Bible. We get the facts, what people said or did, but many times the thoughts and attitudes are left to our own interpretations.

I think it's safe to say that the Isrealites were initially excited and releived when Moses led them out of Egypt. We are told that it wasn't long after they are travelling through the desert that they began to complain and grumble. It's pretty safe to say they quickly became tired, frstrated, anxious, bewildered. They finally reach the promised land and Moses sends spies in. At hearing the report of these spies, the are afraid and unbelieving. Because of these attitudes, we are told, that generation was not allowed to enter the Promised land. So they wondered and walked and got old and had children and traveled. I wonder if they regretted their unbleif. The first generation died and their children finally reached Canaan again. Moses had died and Joshua was in charge. Joshua sends in tow spies who return stating the people in the land are afraid of them.

Here we find the Isrealites in Joshua chapter 3. Camped on the eastern side of the flooding Jordan river, waiting. I wonder what they were thinking. "So, this is the land mom and dad told us about. It really is beautiful. I don't see any giants yet? Do you really think we can take them? How long are we going to be here? It's going to be months before that river goes down enough that we can cross."

Three days later, just as they are settling in, Joshua comes around saying "When you see the priests come by with the ark of the covenant of the Lord (God's house), get up and follow it. Make sure you stay behind a ways so you can see where it's going. You haven't gone this way before. Oh, and sanctify yourselves so you can see His miracles tomorrow." Were the Isrealites excited, thrilled, anxious? I wonder if they were thinking, "We haven't been this way before? We've walked all over this desert. The only place we haven't been is across that river and it's flooding. Oooh, wait, who does he think he is, Moses?" And the ark starts moving. No cloud, no fire, just priests carrying the ark toward the river. By now, I'm sure the people are thinking, "really, he's really going to do it. Has he lost his mind? What happened to that cloud we used to follow?" But they can't help but follow. Partly because they were told to, partly because they don't want to be left alone in the wilderness, but I wonder if it wasn't mostly because they wondered what was going to happen when those priests stepped in the water.

Just as the priests step into the water carrying the ark of the covenant, the water stopped. Suddenly, 15 or 20 miles up the road in the city of Adam, something happened that caused the water to dam up. Amazed, the people of God, walked across the dry riverbed into the land of Promise, no doubt thinking, "hmm, maybe he is Moses. He certainly is favored by God. God is real. God is good. Better hurry across before that dam breaks." The priests stood there until the entire nation crossed over the river Jordan.

Sometimes I feel like the Isrealites. I feel like I've wandered around not exactly sure where I'm going for some time. Then God passes by in a way I don't expect. I follow, not really sure where He's going or what He's going to do. Then He walks toward the water and for a moment I'm frozen in my tracks. "The river? But it's flooding. There's no way I can cross that. What are you thinking?" But He assures me He'll go before me and He'll stay in that river with me until I'm safely across. Then, He'll lead me onward. But the wonders can't begin until I'm willing to step into the and get my soul wet.