Exodus: God's Path to Success

Make sure you are very strong and brave! Carefully obey all the law my servant Moses charged you to keep. Do not swerve from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful in all you do. Joshua 1:7

 Do you feel strong and brave? I know I often don’t. People sometimes tell me that I am though. I don’t know what to do with this. Much of the time I’m doing good to get around the house, strong is not something I’ve identified with for years. But people aren’t often commenting on my physical strength, but the strength necessary to live life under the circumstances I face. Constant, daily, chronic pain is a difficult burden to bear. Uncertainty about health issues, like degenerative illness and a brain tumor, give each day a different look and feel. The loss of my ability to function normally in daily life, to get around and to do the things that most people my age wouldn’t give a second thought, is something that I still wrestle with mentally and emotionally. I have arguments in my head as to whether it is even real or if I am just making it up and exaggerating my situation. Then I step out and try to do things “normally” and find that yes, indeed, I am limited. Does living with those things make me strong and brave? I wonder sometimes if people say that to me to make me, and themselves, feel better. But there is an element of truth to it. I could give up. I could surrender to mind blurring pain medicine and stop trying. I could say, “I can’t,” and not go out and do. But I don’t. Every day I wake up to pain. Oftentimes that pain is so bad I can’t imagine getting out of bed, but I know, logically, that the pain will only get worse if I stay there, so, in faith, I get up. Most of the time the pain does get a little better as I start moving around. Sometimes, like today, it just gets worse anyways. I think the strength comes in with choosing to fight, with not giving up and accepting my situation as inevitable. I think the bravery is pushing through, despite the pain and the bleak outlook of my future, and doing what I’m called to do anyways. I am called to be a good wife and mom and I put myself out there to the best of my abilities, and beyond, to do that every day. I am called to share my testimony and my experiences here, with you. It’s not easy, in fact many days it is very, very hard and takes hours and hours to accomplish. Some days it is all I get done alongside fixing dinner for my family. I could be scrolling on my phone, or playing a game, or watching TV, or any manner of distracting things to help me, but instead I push through the brain fog and focus through the pain to write. God called Joshua in today’s verse to be strong and brave. I don’t want to claim that for myself, but I know that I certainly try!

 Joshua was charged to carefully obey all the law entrusted to the Israelites by Moses. God is above all the mess and worry of life, He can see the whole timeline of earth, from beginning to end. From that perfect vantage point, He knew what behaviors would help and which would cause us trouble. He also knew that whatever rules He gave us to guide us we would end up breaking eventually, that’s just our nature. But even in breaking those rules, and experiencing the consequences, we are given the saving knowledge of our need for Jesus. If we didn’t realize our sin, we wouldn’t see our need to be freed and forgiven of it. God challenged Joshua not to swerve from the law to the left or to the right. That gives me the picture that Joshua was not even to “bend” the law, obeying it mostly but making it work for what he wanted. God wants us to be fully invested, fully bought in. We either believe that what He tells us is best, or we don’t. In Revelations 3:15-16, the church in Laodicea was confronted with being “lukewarm.” God told them that He wished they were either hot or cold, but because they hung out in the middle He would spew them out of His mouth. An old friend of mine used to reference this scripture when saying that her coffee had “hit the spew point.” God does not appreciate our partial obedience. We don’t get a gold star for doing some of what He asked. God wants us to believe fully in our hearts that He is wise and knows what is best for us. By not obeying what He tells us to do or not do, we are showing with our actions that we don’t believe God really knows what is best. We might think He had good intentions, but we know better. Otherwise, why would we do the things we choose to do apart from Him?

 God knew that the best route for Joshua, the one in which He would be the most successful, would be to follow God’s directions exactly. God gave us the law not that we should be burdened by it, but that we might be successful. He loves us and wants the best for us. That’s why sometimes He answers our prayers with a, “No,” because He knows that what we think we want will not actually serve us in the long run.

Here's the Thing: I may not feel strong and brave, but I can choose to act in those ways because I trust that God has me held in the palm of His hand and nothing can snatch me away from that. I can choose to follow His Law, His perfect guidelines for my life, not just in letter but in Spirit. When I do, I can be confident that, in Jesus, I will be successful.