I Lead, You Follow

Joshua 3:3 - "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it."

So my enlightenment continues as I read further about the accounts (don't like calling them stories anymore...stories can be fictional).

Yes, Joshua was a leader. Yes, we can be too. Our leadership abilities, however, stem from a relationship with Christ where we follow Him. It comes when we let go of ourselves and let God lead us first and trust in His guidance.

An interesting thing I heard in Sunday school last week fits so perfectly here. A friend who had just come to know the Lord (years ago) was on her way someplace. As she left her apartment she quietly ushered the Lord to come with her...as she went out ahead. She headed down the hall when she heard a gentle voice saying, You've got it backwards. I lead, you follow, to which she said if anyone could have seen her would have thought she was crazy...after admitting she was wrong, she bowed and made another sweeping gesture with her arm to let God go ahead of her!

What a great testimony of what is expected. If we cannot accept authority in our lives, we might not be able to accept His over ours, an Authority who knows so much better what we are capable of doing through the wisdom and strength of so powerful a Man.

So here's Joshua telling the Israelites to watch for the ark of the covenant, which God commanded Moses to build and where God met with Moses on the mercy seat (a whole other blog). These people knew about the ark. They understood the meaning of it and how supernaturally God was near and was their protection. Joshua is telling them to watch for it and follow behind it so they will know which direction (of safety) they should go.

Just like when they crossed the Red Sea and the waters parted, so the waters of the Jordan River did. They passed over on dry ground to the land God had given them. 

If we personalize this we can see that if we trust the Lord with our lives, we will be successful if we follow Him and be obedient in all things. We follow Him so we know which direction we should go. We can never go wrong...but we can so easily slip and get ahead of Him because in our human minds we think we have Him all figured out...and we want to help Him along!

I ran into an acquaintance the other day in a grocery store. I'd not seen her in years. She told me she was planning on retiring shortly and after living in the Milwaukee area and having all things within a very tight radius from her apartment, she was believing God was asking her to trust Him to pack up her things and move to another state. She has no idea why or what she will do. She's a little uneasy because this is not her way, but she specifically knows that she is to take an account of all she has and uses and get rid of all she doesn't need. Sounds like a moving plan to me! How exciting to just trust Him without any understanding. I hope I will be informed as to all that transpires. I know the Lord will be beside her and when all is finished there will be some glorious plan awaiting her.

This is what God wants us to do with every minute of our lives. This is what yesterday's blog was about. We talked a bit about this even in our Bible study on Hebrews Tuesday. Listening for God's voice, taking heed of what He says and being obedient to His command. And especially trusting that what you do will be guided by His Spirit. He has already prepared the way...just like He prepared the Way for us 2,000 years ago. He prepared the Way that we might become His followers....not His leaders. What's the old saying, Too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

Joshua was shown and now was showing the people that "By this you shall know that the living God is among you..." (Joshua 3:10a)

To end, another quick point: Joshua had all the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel take a stone to build a monument where they had crossed over the river as a reminder of just what God had done for them. All our lives we can see little monuments of times when God has done things in our lives. When we are obedient we succeed. When we succeed we are encouraged. When we are encouraged, we can continue on knowing no matter what, God has something good in store for us. When we fear God enough to do things like I've brought up here, only success will prevail. Doesn't it make you wonder what you're missing?

Joshua 4:24 - "...that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever."