Thursday, January 11, 2018

Forgetting to Remember

Thursday, January 11, 2018
After Joshua sent the people away, each of the tribes left to take possession of the land allotted to them.  And the Israelites served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the leaders who outlived him—those who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.  Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110.  They buried him in the land he had been allocated, at Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.  After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.  The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight and served the images of Baal.  They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt.  They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them.  And they angered the Lord.  They abandoned the Lord to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth.  This made the Lord burn with anger against Israel, so he handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions.  He turned them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them.  Every time Israel went out to battle, the Lord fought against them, causing them to be defeated, just as he had warned.  And the people were in great distress.  Judges 2:6-15(NLT)
Joshua was picked by God to be the successor to Moses.  In many ways Joshua’s faith shined much brighter, more definite than his mentor.  After a long campaign to win the Promised Land Joshua died.  The leadership of judges followed in the life of Israel, but the next generation lost sight of all they’d learned about the importance of serving God.
If you’re into reading biographies of great leaders you always notice that even the greatest leaders only have a transitory effect; the next generation will make its mistakes because they forget to remember the mistakes of the previous generation.  And forgetting to remember was costly in the life of the young nation in the Promised Land.  It is so with every culture.
In the current day world of political reality-TV drama, every day brings a new revelation of accusation, expose’, and embarrassment; in the next news cycle heads begin to roll.  A campaign manager, advisor, special assistant, or acquaintance is fired, trashed or otherwise humiliated.  Careers end and jail sentences begin for the losers.  Top dogs fight hard to stay on top.
Perhaps it is the mellowing time brings, or just the yellowing of history’s pages against the harsh images of a very different-paced world, but current day politics seems to have suffered the loss of the Joshua effect.  Today’s leaders are not like those of another era. 
For instance I read (and re-read) Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals last year.  It’s the account of Abraham Lincoln’s rise to the presidency.  What created the title was the overwhelming genius of Lincoln choosing his main political rivals to be his cabinet.  This was a leader who knew it was senseless to waste the great gifts that were possessed by leaders just for the sake of his ego; he put aside the me and elevated the we.
The current generation could take a lesson from that.

For You Today

It’s a good decision to recognize that other people aren’t our enemies; we do a pretty good job of being our own worst enemy when we fear others rather than follow God.  Today resolve to be a Joshua!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com

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