I Wonder If….
If I am training for a marathon, I will not only prepare my body physically for the race, but I will also learn from others who have run races before me. If I want to run well and make it across the finish line strong and on two feet, I will prepare long and hard ahead of time. Otherwise…well, you know. I will quit early in the race or I will crawl across the finish line, half dead! I actually understand this because I ran a 3 mile race MANY years ago. I trained hard and I still struggled to make it across the line without throwing up!
So, in recently reading the end of Deuteronomy, Joshua and the beginning of Judges, I wondered if things would have been different IF Joshua had raised up a leader as well as Moses raised up Joshua to lead. And, what if each generation had followed God’s commands and taught the next generation to do the same, would we be where we are in our own country today? Would things be different now? Would we be running a stronger race for the Kingdom? Choosing to run hard until our race is over?
To me the end of Deuteronomy is a bit sad because Moses only gets to look into the Promised Land, but not enter it. Remember, striking the rock to get water out of it was disobedience to God’s command and did not honor God’s holiness (see Deuteronomy 32:48-52) …this was VERY important for God’s people to understand, especially a leader like Moses. I posted this on social media that day I read the Deuteronomy passage:
But, we know Moses was able to raise up another leader who would take Israel into Canaan and his name was Joshua. He had been an assistant to Moses during the wandering years in the desert. He learned how to lead and trust God. And Moses passed the baton of leadership and faith to him.
Throughout the book of Joshua, we see Joshua leading the people into Canaan and through the battles for the land. We also see Israel disobey God’s commands at times, as their ancestors had done before them. But at the end of Joshua’s life we do NOT see him handing off the leadership of the nation, we just read that he died.
I finished Judges 2-3 the day I wrote this post. Judges 2:8-10 says, “Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110. They buried him in the territory of his inheritance, in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel.”
Today my post on social media said this:
So what do you think? What IF Joshua had raised up a leader to take his place? Would the next generation have known God? We will never know the answer to that, but look around at our country today. We have an opportunity to make a difference for the Kingdom in a land where so many people do NOT follow God. One person at a time, we CAN make a difference for eternity.
I just finished a series of blog posts on disciple-making. Please go back and read if you missed them. (The first in the series is here and it links to the other 3 at the bottom.)
Then ask God how you can disciple another. YES.YOU.CAN. Just take their hand and draw them along as you are following Him.
You do not have to be perfect, just follow hard after Christ and take others with you, then train others to lead others…for the future generations, so they WILL know and walk strongly in Christ!
Let’s run our race all the way to the end, having learned from those Christ-followers, heroes of the faith (Hebrews 11 and Hebrews 12:1-2), who have gone before us. Let’s take as many others with us as possible as we run hard after Christ. Be trained (discipled) and train others (make disciples).
Then, just maybe…what if our country turns back to God?
