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!
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