The Power in Small Words

Key Verse: “Be strong and very courageous to observe carefully the whole instruction my servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it right or left, so that you will have success wherever you go.” Joshua 1:7 (CSB)

But…..

It is hard to believe just how much power a three letter word can hold over me. Power that I can at times freely give to it. 

I have been known to let it hover over me for days until I am unable to move forward. It weakens my faith and stirs my heart to question all the wonderful promises God has for me. 

As I read Joshua 1, I let my mind travel to that place where Joshua was standing. A place I call the end of the middle place. A place where you have been stuck for what seems like forever and you are getting ready to pull out and start toward the end.  

Behind Joshua and God’s people were the days spent in Egypt. All the years in bondage to Egyptian kings where they were slaves.  

God rescued them and led them out of that bondage with a strong right hand. He parted the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptians when they stood in their first end of the middle place. That place where it looked like they would be destroyed by the Egyptians at their back or drown in the waters of the Red Sea before them. 

We all know the incredible story. God parted the Red Sea opening up their path so they could leave out of the middle headed toward freedom in their new land of promise. 

God rescued them so they would know, and that we too would also know, that he is a God who brings deliverance.  Deliverance from the physical situations and circumstances we as God’s people sometimes go through. And also to show he delivers from all the what is and what ifs that flood our minds with fear, stress and anxiety. Deliverance from what the eye can see and from everything that the mind can imagine.  

They crossed the Red Sea that day full of promise. But…that word showed up. God had planned for them to go directly into the Promised Land of Canaan. What they discovered was that they would first have to defeat the giants in the land before they could enter in.

With the promise came that three letter word. That dreadful three letter word… But.  And they did exactly what I so often do. They let it hover over them too. They gave it power over them just like I do. 

God had indeed promised them the land of Canaan. A land flowing with milk and honey. A land full of promise. 

But….talked them out of conquering the land of Cannon. Giants lived there. A people bigger than they were. They knew God had promised them Cannon but they couldn’t possibly defeat such a mighty foe. 

But.. took their eyes off the size of their God and focused on the size of the giants. But….filled them with fear and paralyzed them. But..kept them from moving forward into God’s promises for them. 

It would be 40 long years before they would stand again in the end of the middle place. All those years spent in the wilderness where their own faith had been so tested. There they experienced hunger, thirst, impatience, fear and longing and yet God proved to them he was faithful and would provide for all their needs. Every. Single.Time.  

He had been their manna in the morning, their water from the rock in the hot afternoon sun and their fire by night that protected them from what lay in the darkness. He had protected them from what they could see and even from what they couldn’t see. He went before them and behind them until they had arrived in the end of the middle place where they now stood. The end of what was to go forward into the place that will be that God had prepared for them. A place full of brand new possibilities. Brand new experiences.  Brand new victories. 

So here they stood ready to go into God’s promised land. Again. As God had one last locker room talk with Joshua before he would cross the Jordan River and lead his team to victory at Jericho, he would speak these faith building words into the ears and heart of Joshua. 

“Now you and all the people prepare to cross over the Jordan to the land I am giving the Israelites. I have given you every place where the sole of your foot treads just as I promised Moses.”  He would also go on to tell Joshua to “Be strong and very courageous to observe carefully the whole instruction my servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it right or left, so that you will have success wherever you go.” 

As I stare at God’s promise and instruction to Joshua, I know God is speaking this same word over my life. God too has to give me that pep talk because I so often want to stand looking at my problem afraid to go forward into the unknowns instead of looking at my God.  I turn my gaze to that word but that covers me in fear instead of God’s word that covers me in hope and courage. Times when I can find it easier to look to my questions instead of to God’s word for the answers. 

But….how will I do it?

But….it looks impossible.

But….what if I fail?

But…what if things don’t turn out? What will I do?

But..life won’t be the same. What if I don’t like it. What if I’m sad?

My list of buts was starting to get longer until God begin to show me he had some buts of his own.

Me:  But how will I do it?

God: You think you can’t do it but you can. You will follow me. Remember my word. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13 (NIV)

Me: But it looks impossible. 

God:  But it is not impossible.   “I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27 (ESV)

Me: But what if I fail?

God: But you have my promise that you can make it when you trust in me.  “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.” Proverbs 24:16 (NKJ)

Me: But life won’t be the same.  What if I am going to be sad? 

God: But you only see what was before and what is now.  I am doing something new.  I have new plans for you. And one day you will speak the words of David. “I will sing to You a new song, O God; on a harp of ten strings I will make music to You.”  Psalms 144:9 (NIV)

So I’m learning my buts so often come from my longing to get comfortable in my middle places.  I seek to find stability in my life. I long for a place of permanent rest. I so often seek to find it in people and things. But they were never meant to do that for me or for you. God is our only constant this side of Heaven. Things will change. People will change. But God never will.

I am also learning sometimes I have to try several times to get things right just like the children of Israel.  As they stood at the end of the middle place for the second time ready to cross Jordan and tackle the giant problems in front of them, there would be no…But. 

No. Not this time. 

This time they would be moving out of the middle and into the promise.