Joshua Is Suddenly Old
Today we hear about
Joshua being old and advanced in years.
That title took me down the path of age and leadership. I don’t know about you, but I always picture
Joshua young. I think I do this because
I know that Joshua is Moses’ mentee and I assume therefore that he is younger
than Moses. The only problem is that
Moses had lived 80 years before the Exodus even began! So if Moses was 80 when the Exodus began,
Joshua could have still been middle-aged and been younger than Moses.
Don’t also forget that
Joshua was at least a young adult (what we’d call today a teenager) when the
Hebrew people scouted the land the first time.
And that was before the 40 years in the wilderness. So Joshua was at least 50 or 55 when he took
over for Moses.
Truth be told, Jewish
tradition puts Joshua at 85 years of age when he took over for Moses (who at
the time of his death was 120). If
tradition is correct, Joshua was no young leader full of vigor as he went into
the Promised Land! If he wasn’t a young
leader when the conquest began, no wonder that the Bible calls him old and
advanced in years when the first stage of conquest is over!
So what does this
mean for us? Well, it means a few
things.
Correlation Between Age and Wisdom
First, we can see
that there is reason that wisdom rests in the older portion of the
population. It takes experience to
become wise. We’d all love to be wise at
20 – or even 16! And when we are of that
age, most of us actually believe we are pretty wise. But true wisdom sets in much later than
20. As I sit here writing this in my
mid-thirties I now know all too well that I don’t even have true wisdom yet. I’d love to say that I am wise, but the
reality is that I simply don’t have enough life experience to be truly wise. I still find myself needing to step back and
learn from the wisdom of the more mature in the faith. I mean, if Joshua at 45 can step back and be
the mentee of Moses … then what does that say about any of us? Sure, we are all called to be a Christ’s
priests. But we should not also be too
proud to understand our limitations and room for growth, either.
Seeing It to the End
The second thing it
says is that sometimes we don’t finish the job.
Moses didn’t get to come into the Promised Land. Joshua doesn’t get to see the fullest extent
of the Hebrew conquest of Canaan. God
told Joshua it was time to pass the torch along to someone else. Joshua needs to divide up the land and his
duties will be done. There is nothing
wrong with thinking that God is big enough to successfully have others finish the
work before us.
Wait. Is There an End to God’s Work?
That leads us to a
third understanding. There is always
more work to do. Until Christ returns,
there will always be more work. We will
never be able to sit back and say, “It is finished.” Only Christ can say that – in fact, he’ll actually
say it twice! Once upon the cross, and
once when He returns in glory! So we
should not fool ourselves in that regard, either. There will always be more work to be
done. So rather than setting our sights
on the elusive goal of “being done so we can put our feet up and rest” – a goal
which we’ll never reach – let’s just accomplish what God has set before us and
keep plugging away at it.
Well, I took us down
a bit of a rabbit trail today. But I
felt it was worth it. Peace.
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