Scared for Nothing!

The Yahweh's Yarn in a Year for January 2 was from Joshua 1-5. This section begins the time when the next generation of Israelites prepared to enter & conquer the Promised Land. Reading Genesis through Deuteronomy, you'll discover that God had promised Abraham and his descendants that land, but when the whole mob left Egypt, they were afraid of the people in the land they were about to enter. Of the 12 spies they sent in, only two — Joshua (the guy the book's named after, and now the leader of the Israelites) and Caleb — had the faith to believe God was going to give them the land. As a result, the people were told to go back into the wilderness and wander around there for 40 years, in the wilderness that took them a year to get through.

There's quite a bit of stuff to look at here, but here's what hit me in the face this time. This comes from the story of the scouting party investigating Jericho. You can find this in Joshua 2:1-11. Rahab, a prostitute and flax handler of some sort, had hidden the spies from the guards that were looking for them. She explained that the city was scared of the Israelites. Why? Because of all the stuff that happened 40 years ago!

Consider †his: 40 years ago the Israelites wimped out, even after being miraculously rescued from the Egyptians by tons of … well, miracles! Through it all, they got scared of the people in the land beyond the Jordan river. But those people heard about it, too … and were even more scared of the Israelites and their God Who fought for them! They didn't just get scared now. They were scared 40 years ago, when Israel was just as scared. For forty years the people of Jericho lived under the threat of the Israelites coming in and taking them out. For forty years, though, the feared Israelites were themselves fearful, so much that they had to spend a time-out in the desert until that generation was gone.

Now Consider †his: isn't God just as much for the child of God today as He was for the children of Israel then? The world is scared of God today. Why do you think there's so much of a push to get rid of Christmas, but not the false Kwanzaa, or the real Hanukkah, Ramadan, or other holidays? As one person put it, "it's because it's got Christ in it, and after 2,000 years He's still intimidating people." You, Christian, are intimidating, too. If you have Christ in you, you're just as intimidating. Obviously the point isn't to make people fear you, but don't be afraid of what happens around you when Christ is in you.