The Old and New NormalSample

The Next Chapter

If we build an altar, they will ask questions. And it will give us a chance, naturally, to tell the story again, to rehearse what God has done for us. “For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over” (Joshua 4:23). It wasn’t just about our great decisions, hard work, creativity, or personal resourcefulness. We are never the heroes of our stories. God was always at work in and through our stories. Remembering what God has done causes you to approach life from a spiritual perspective in a way that prepares you for new victories.

Maybe your miracle stories don’t seem nearly so obvious. Maybe your path through the waters didn’t seem nearly so neat. Perhaps you feel as if you waded or swam across the river to get from where you were to where you are now. But here’s the fact: regardless of how you got to where you are, you are here now. You made it this far somehow. You are not yet where you want to be or where you think you ought to be, but you are not where you started. You could have drowned in the river or died on the long journey that brought you to the river. But you did not die; you did not drown. You got here someway, somehow. How did you make it this far?

God made a way—maybe even when you didn’t ask to. God brought you out when you saw no way out. God carried you farther than your legs could have ever carried you. Listen to your life a little bit closer. Look at your life a little bit closer. Somewhere there is a story of the goodness and faithfulness of God. There is a reason to find some rocks. There is a reason to build an altar. Maybe you didn’t exactly cross the Jordan River, but you crossed over something hard! You made it from somewhere back there to here. Whatever way it happened, it is a story that needs to be remembered and rehearsed.

That doesn’t mean we live in the past or become enamored with past victories. A ship’s captain charts his course not by the ship’s wake but by the stars. The car windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason! Where we have been matters, but not nearly as much as where we are going. When God is the One who carves out the path for us, the best is always yet to come. We need to take an inventory of our victories. For the ancient Israelites that inventory meant there was one stone for each of the twelve tribes. A company of millions of people came from those twelve tribes, the product of a covenant God made to bless just one man, Abraham. They had to faithfully remember the victories of the past to make space for victories in their future.

Verse to dwell on: 

Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations…I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between men and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come…”—GENESIS 17:3-5, 7, NIV

From the LORD comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people.—PSALM 3:8, NIV

Scriptures:

Joshua 4:23

Genesis 17:3-5, 7

Psalm 3:8