Mundane Reading- Hot Nugget!

As we continue on a reading journey through the book of Joshua what sticks out to my mind more than anything through the middle to late chapters is how the Bible goes on and on about the settling of the land of Canaan.  At first glance I just wanted to race through it and move to a spiritual truth or a more inspiring section.  Yet I felt almost guilty for doing so.  My thoughts led me to that because think about all the nation had been through.  Walking around for 40 years and that on top of 400 years of slavery in Egypt.  I felt that although knowing where Judah would be settling or the tribe of Benjamin at first glance was not that interesting, recognizing all these people had been through, I read line by line to just acknowledge......  THEY MADE IT.  Squeezed in, in the middle of all this historical mid eastern geography lesson is a true nugget.  The scripture reads: "Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass." Joshua 21:45.   Now that is a truth for the ages.  GOD DID WHAT HE SAID.  ALL OF IT.  So many of us will cut out of reading the genealogy portions of scripture, but I tell you, I am learning, there are nuggets tucked away for all those who dig in the Word.  This scripture encouraged me to ask myself."What has God said to me?"  In my "wilderness wanderings," I hear the Lord speaking to me and our church that we have got to go through a land to get to a land.  When I started walking this journey of church planting 8 years ago I thought I would be inhabiting my "Canaan."  Instead I was walking around clueless eating manna from Heaven.  That may sound good to you, but I said the same thing the Israeli kids said in my journey of faith, "what is this?".  That is the literal translation of the word "manna".  I find that it is awesome to be in God's miracle provision but when you get thirsty and there is not water fountain, it can be stressful.  God did for me what He did for Israel, and now I feel like God is speaking to us as a church that He is not "giving" us the land, but it is ours to take now.  We will have to fight for it.  The manna is going to stop falling.  In one day, manna ceased to fall for Israel....but God had provided through the provision of the labor of other nations for Israel to feed off of.  This next season for us I feel will be a fighting season.  Not sure what that looks like, but it isn't wandering.  That is great.  I am ready to "cross over".  Even greater is the example before me in the Word that says, "all came to pass."  I am living in expectancy more than ever for the Lord to give us this land ready for the harvest even now.  Pray for our new building as we look to inhabit that in January....looks like we got to fight to find it first!

Stu