Joshua 12-16 Remember Remember

Today, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend some time with old family friends--the kind of people that new me before I knew them. It really was wonderful. Days like these are the ones that really "Make" Christmas break for me--it was wonderful. Tie into that spending a chunk of my evening knitting and drinking tea with a dog sleeping on my feet--and a truly ideal day is created.

In reading tonight, I came across a lot of very skimmable passages....meaningful, yes...meaningful to me...not so much.

The book of Joshua contains a lot f names-names for cities, and for defeated kings, and names for barriers between lands--lots of names that are difficult for me to really attach meaning to because I was not with Israel when they defeated a king named Sihon...and I will never remember the name of the stream that marked the edge of Caleb's land...but these passages still contain vast meaning for a reader in the 21st century.

These passages remind us of the importance of keeping a record...of remembering the faithfulness of God.

No, these passages do not hold personal meaning for me...but the people who wrote them knew the strength of the defeated king--and they used this passage as a method for holding onto the reality of God's action in their lives. That is important.

This passage is a reminder to give God credit--and to keep personal records of the things that he does in our lives--so that we never forget the mark that he has made on our lives.

No, the memories that we record do not have to carry meaning for all of mankind--they simply need to remind us to continue to trust in the God that has brought us this far!