Wade Into The Waters

One day, God told a man named Joshua, “I want you to take My people Israel across the River Jordan into the Promised Land.”

Joshua said, “Wait a minute, God. Don’t You know who this is You are talking to?”

God said, “Yes, your name is Joshua.”

Joshua said, “Yes, that is right, but You have the wrong man.”

God said, “What are you talking about, Joshua?”

Joshua replied, “Well, God, I am not the miracle worker that Moses was. Moses is dead. I can’t take the people across this river into the Promised Land.”

God told him, “Joshua, I want to tell you something. Moses never led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. I did. I was in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. When Moses did not have a road map or a compass, I was his road map and compass. I led him by day and in the night or he never would have made it. I did it. Moses didn’t part the Red Sea. I did. Moses didn’t feed those people in the wilderness for forty years. I did.”

Joshua said, “I never realized that.”

God said, “That’s all right, Joshua. You just get the Ark of the Covenant, put it on the shoulders of the priests, and have them march out into that river.”

God is talking to you in that same manner. He is asking you to tread water that is strange to you. He is asking you to cut away some shorelines, some traditions, some historical aspects, and follow Him only.

Joshua, said, “God, I can’t put that Ark of the Covenant on the shoulders of the priests and march out into the River Jordan. Moses would not have done it like that.”

Never be afraid of God’s firsts. Never be afraid to break with tradition. Do not be so tied to your liturgical, denominational apron strings that you cannot cut them loose. God said to Joshua, “I want you to cut away from your shorelines no matter if Moses did not do it this way. You do it this way because you are not Moses and I am teaching you.”

God said, “Walk out…”

Joshua said, “I can’t do it.”

God said, “Now, why not?”

“Because I will make a fool of myself.”

Imagine yourself in Joshua’s place, taking an Ark of the Lord which is the presence of God — the holiest thing in the kingdom of the Lord — and marching it like an idiot on the shoulders of the priests out into a river! Perhaps God has asked you to do something that appears equally as foolish. If so, wade on in the waters!