Year 1, Day 206, Joshua 21

Proximity to God

Joshua 21 gives us several interesting concepts.  The first is a reoccurring theme over the last several days: giving.  We already saw Judah give out of its inheritance to Simeon.  Here we see all of the Hebrew people give out of its inheritance to the Levites.  So we come across one lesson of importance: the closer we are to God, the easier it should be to give to those in need.

The Hebrew people of this generation were praised for their faithfulness – although as we have seen certainly they were not without a few places of stumbling.  But this generation was truly close to God.  It shows.  They listen to their spiritual leaders.  They consult God.  They don’t just honor God with their lips, but they genuinely give to their brothers and sisters in need out of their own inheritance.  They are close to God and you can see it in their lives even more than you can see it in their words.

Supporting One Another

This issue of generosity stemming from their relationship with God brings us to another truth.  Notice the balance that happens among the Hebrew people.  The Levites were dependent upon the rest of the tribes for their life, while the rest of the tribes were dependent upon the Levites for their spirituality.  However, we also know that the spirituality of the rest of the tribes will influence their possession of the land and their relative ease of life.  So the closer the people are to God, the less trouble the Hebrew people have with each other and with the nations around them.  As they stray from God, they have more trouble among themselves and among the nations.

Now, I must be careful here.  I am not trying to preach a Gospel of prosperity.  I’m not saying, “Be close to God and you will prosper.”  Nor am I saying the contrapositive, “If you are suffering you must not be close to God.”  My prior paragraph was not meant in terms of prosperity but simply in general ease of life: relationships with others, fighting against sin, etc. 

The closer we are to God the more likely we are to be content with what we have.  The closer we are to God the more likely we should be at peace with our family and neighbors.  The closer we are to God the less we should be swallowed deeply and blindly into sin.

Back to the Levites

But I have digressed from my point.  Notice the balance.  The Hebrew peoples’ relationship with God impacts the whole of the rest of their life.  But what impacts their relationship with God?  Their relationship with spiritual mentors like the Levites.  But what impacts the relationship with the Levites?  Well, the generosity and provision for them.  But what impacts the Hebrew people’s ability to provide for the Levites?  Well, their relationship with God! 

It is a big cycle that when things go well it works beautifully!  When only one thing goes wrong then the whole system falls apart.  When one part is strengthened, the whole cycle naturally grows stronger.  When one part is weakened, the whole cycle is jeopardized.

Now, I’m not saying that the people being mentored spiritually are responsible for making easy the lives of those who are in positions of mentoring them.  That is not where I am going at all.  Nobody should be free from work and merely live off the effort of others! 

More generally I am saying that in order for spirituality to happen people have to first care about their relationship with God and they have to care about their relationship with the other spiritual people in their life.  For this cycle to work for the Hebrew people they – both the regular tribe member and the Levites – had to care about God and about each other.  It is no different for us.

Think about it.  Suppose you are in a relationship with God and community.  When it is obvious that you care about your relationship with God and the spiritual mentors in your life, life will go far more smoothly.  Your spiritual mentors will check in with you, listen to you, walk through the difficult points of life with you, and more generally support you.  But when you don’t care about God and don’t care about your spiritual mentors, it makes it far more difficult for the spiritual people around you to do their job.  You beging to feel uncared for, unloved, alone, estranged, etc.

Completion of the Promise

Finally, we hear another passage about how the land was settled and given as God promised.  And we hear how the people had rest.  This doesn’t mean all of the Canaanites were completely driven out.  We’ve already seen at least four cases where this didn’t happen as well as the people and God desired (the Gibeonites, the Jebusites, the inheritance of the Manassates, and Dan’s inheritance being lost to the native Canaanites).  And we’ll hear in Judges (and beyond) about the effects of leaving these small pockets of native inhabitants in the land.  But this doesn’t change the fact that the people in general had a short time of rest.

So it is with us.  I began the blog of Joshua comparing the book to our spiritual walk.  And as we approach the end of the book we still find this too be true.  As God’s followers and with God’s help, we try to root out sin from our life as much as possible.  We fight as best as we are able.  Well, at least sometimes we fight as best as we are able.  Yet we still cannot get rid of it completely. 

It’s because we are not able to completely overcome the effects of living in this present world.  So in the same way that the Hebrew people cleaned out the land as best they could and will perpetually deal with the results of not being able to thoroughly cleanse the land … so do we deal with the same problem.  We long to be free from the effects of sin.  But it is always right there around the corner, waiting to draw us away from God once more.

But that does not mean we don’t have our times of rest, too.  Sure we struggle.  We fight the good fight.  And sometimes we are given a time of rest.  But do not worry.  There will always be a call to fight against sin in the future.  And there will be a call to rest following that.  It is the life cycle of the Hebrew people as they are literally pulled between the ways of their God and the ways of the world.  It is the same life cycle for the Christian as well.

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