While on vacation, I have been memorizing the following Scripture, and one of the neat things that memorizing Scriptures do is that it forces me to become very observant of each word. Well, or course, you may say, Isn’t that what MEMORIZING is all about, anyway….remembering ‘each word’? My reply is ‘yes’…and when I do this I begin to appreciate and hear better what the text is saying, and what it does not say. Let me explain. First, here is that Scripture I mentioned earlier: (I highlighted the words that I wanted to emphasize):
This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for theLord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:8-9 New American Standard
What grabbed my attention here is simply (and yet, profoundly) the reality that God IS NOT telling Joshua (and us!) that He is going to just dump success into our laps without any effort on our parts. And prior to this happening, God calls our attention to our need to meditate on His Word
Now once I see Scriptures become more personal -like this- I ask myself if other portions of God’s word supports what I am finding, otherwise, I am liable to be pulling Scripture out of context, and that is not good at all. My search today shows me that other portions of God’s word do back this ‘gold nugget’ that I found. Just to cite a couple drew my attention to Matthew’s parable of the talents and a portion of first chapter to the book of Psalms.
I am awed at what God is showing us in this Scripture for several reasons.
Firstly, way too many of us are missing out on living like a King’s kid because we are ‘waiting on God’ to move the circumstances (and us?) into better days. As an aside, while waiting on God IS scriptural, it does not convey a sense of doing nothing. Rather it means to be actively pursuing God’s ways while giving us the opportunity to align our own ways with His way. Work is required.
The second reason is that God wants us to prosper, primarily and foundationally, by living in contentment and being rock solid in our decisions for our live’s direction as we are mindful of His words.
Lastly, as I am memorizing this, I started to think that some people (Christians included!) assume that being a Christian and going all out with the faith (aka ‘meditating on His word DAY AND NIGHT) will leave us as a bore to be around, and never really confronting the demands of life. Thus, there is a tendency to get that college degree, to find that prosperous job, to build our social status while STILL keeping our other foot on our Christian faith by way of going to church on Sunday, and maybe even leading a Bible Study, or being part of a missions trip, or the like. Yet, the mind set that is subtly being developed here is get us to believe that our Christian faith can run parallel with our life’s pursuits. Our faith, though, is to become an addendum to our life; instead, God is showing us that He saved us to show us how to live our life moment by moment by faith. Big difference!
I think one to many of us have tried to latch onto a business plan that offered success in terms of financial security and have failed because while we amassed stacks of cash, that is the only thing we have and this, my friends is the definition of L-O-N-E-L-Y.
In closing, there is one more thing that I am reflecting on as I memorize this Scripture: I find extremely fascinating that the very thing that we want, namely, success and prosperity, is the very thing that God gives us through His Son. And we are pushing away ‘the meat and potatoes’ for an unhealthy me-first diet.
We really need to talk this up! Let’s go public with this, OK?
Blessings on your journey!
-Michael