Head 'em up....Move 'em out!

For now the journey had ceased.
Grief was the order of the day.
Questions abound and filled every ones mind.
"What now?"
"Is this the end?"
People looked to each other for the answers, but none were found.
Whispered voices floated through the camp carrying messages of fear and doubt.
"Joshua? You've got to be kidding me. I know he was Moses' right hand man but I don't think Joshua has the mettle to take us into the promised land."
Such was the mindset of Israel when their leader Moses had died.
Moses had been the face of the Exodus ever since leaving Egypt.
People looked to Moses.
Hate him or love him, Moses was God-picked to be the voice of a nation.
Now he was gone.

We read in Joshua chapter one:
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses aide, "Moses my servant is dead. Not then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to the them---to the Israelites."

I love God's forwardness in the matter of Moses.
"He is dead." End of discussion. Time to move on.
God knew that the death of Moses would affect everyone in the Exodus, especially Joshua. Here with the death of Moses, Israel had no human leader. No intercessor for the people who stood between them and God who had delivered them with his mighty hand.

To be fair, looking at it from this day and age, God's pronouncement  of "Moses my servant is dead", seems rather blunt and uncaring. Not so. God had great love for Moses, and he knew that the hardest part of the exodus was now just beginning. Getting to this land of promise was only half the battle. Entering and disposing of the peoples who lived there was the larger piece of the puzzle.

Sometimes we let the events of our day stop our journey in recovery.
It may be the death of a family member or the loss of a job.
The reality of what has happened always brings emotions up. Grief, sadness, pain, anger, depression...they surface when traumatic events come to our lives. But God understands the toxic nature of these emotions and he knows that we do need a proper amount of time to process what we are going through. The danger comes when we simply stop and plan to go no farther. It is then that we hear the words, "Get up and move on! Don't camp here." The devil would love nothing better than to cause us to stop our recovery. To quit going to meetings because we are emotionally not doing well. To quit working the steps because we don't have the emotional energy to carry on. The devil definitely wants to stop you from your exodus into a "promised" life. Don't let him.

When things and events seem to overwhelm you.....that is when you press in to God. That is when you admit the powerlessness you feel. Times like this is when you rely on the Power greater than yourselves, the Lord Jesus Christ, to restore you to sanity. We do not have the luxury of simply stopping, never to start again.
Yes! It is hard when you are overwhelmed.
Yes! It is hard when situation after situation seems to rear its ugly head and suck the life from you.
We need to fall upon the words that God told Paul during one of Paul's struggles.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Today, let God's grace be the sufficiency you need to move farther on into this promised Life.
God on you......
mb