Do you dread getting old?

May 19, 2023

Maria Exodus, Joshua 14, Miracles, Nehemiah 9, Psalm 78, Unbelief , , , , , , , Leave a comment

We hear of death and disease all around us, whether the circumstances concern people we know firsthand like family, friends and colleagues or those we only know of, like Tim Keller.

These accounts can scare us and even depress us once we reach a certain age.

Given that context and being in my mid-60s, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Hebrews whom God miraculously and almost inconceivably delivered out of Egyptian enslavement.

But you know their story of appalling unbelief after having lived through and witnessed God’s protection of Goshen, the housing area assigned them, as plagues struck their captors and not them. But God’s visible and tangible working on their behalf continued. Miracles included:

  • The astounding night flight with all their belongings, not to mention gifted riches from their neighbors.
  • Safe and dry passage along the seabed when it looked like they were trapped, only to be slaughtered.
  • God’s judgment on their cocky pursuers by drowning when the sea walls were released and the water found its previous equilibrium.

With all that ‘seeing-MUST-be-believing’ evidence, we scratch our heads with incredulity as we read about their complaints and selective memory regarding water and the lack of food choices.

I know you are familiar with all these accounts, but have you considered the less showy, but the other astounding ways God provided for them?  Take the manna, for instance.

Reading in Psalm 78:24-25:

…..and he (God) rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance. (ESV)

And in Nehemiah 9:20-21:

…….You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. (ESV)

Think for a moment.  The food God provided turned out to be supernatural power food.  It must have been perfectly balanced with enough energy to enable them to do the hard labor of unpacking household gear, tabernacle construction, herd tending, packing up family belongings and worship materials and then walking mile after mile (in circles).

The women did not have to do much meal prep, for God consistently provided what they needed and they ate their full.  And about their clothes, young girls didn’t learn to card wool, weave yarn, sew or repair clothing. For nothing they put on wore out, even their sandals. That doesn’t describe the life I know. For I buy replacement clothes and shoes on a regular basis!

Furthermore, the detail I REALLY love, the one that makes smile, is that among all twelve tribes of aging men and women no one’s feet swelled. That’s such a real fact of life about our bodies as we age.  Just praise God as you consider how he thought of everything.

God’s ability to sustain the generation that WAS to receive the promised inheritance makes me recall Caleb.

Do you remember this valiant man?  Shortly into the wilderness wanderings, he and Joshua took part in a recon assignment to investigate the new lands promised them.  Sadly, these two men were the only ones among the twelve who reported that the new territory lived up to God’s description and waited to be received.  The other tribe representatives skewered the group’s analysis out of fear and the people believed the majority report.

Therefore, God caused that generation of Hebrews to die before seeing or crossing into the promised land.

But Joshua and Caleb made it through the wilderness and entered the inheritance God had readied for them. Just as he promised.

Look at Caleb’s evaluation of the previous years in Joshua 14:10-11:

Now, as you can see, the LORD has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise—even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that (scouting) journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. (NLT)

If we take the Exodus wilderness journey of 40 years with all its trials, deprivations and suffering as a metaphor for life on earth 1.0 and if making it safely to the promised land presents a picture of our arrival in heaven, then Caleb’s words and example should give us pause.

The ageing process doesn’t HAVE to be ‘downhill all the way and then we die’.

Caleb shows us (and Joshua as well) that it is possible some of us will still be physically and mentally vigorous and vibrant on the day God has predetermined for us to cross over.  

Why am I drawing out this point?  Because I listen to many friends my age and older who think and expect that decline and pain are inevitable as we approach our last days. I don’t doubt that those days have been scripted by God. What I’m pushing back on is how I hear my friends talk about what they think is bound to happen at the slight indicator of decline.  It’s so negative.

But why not aspire to be a Caleb, as much as we can.  We have the power to choose our thoughts and our words.  And the words WE say to ourselves, our heart and mind receive as ‘truth’. 

God is always doing more than we choose to ask for or dare to imagine!

Achsah’s wisdom toward her husband and confidence in her father – a model for us

April 11, 2019

Maria Ephesians 3, Joshua 15, Prayer , , , 2 Comments

Joshua 15: 16-19

Caleb said, “Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.” And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife.  When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?”  She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have given me the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.

Achsah is one confident daughter.  She knows what is necessary for a secure future with her new husband Othniel – land with easy access to water.  She knows who can provide, her dad!

Here are the facts leading up to her in-person request of her good father, Caleb:

  • Caleb offers Achsah, his daughter, to the man who subdues and occupies a certain town.  This city is located in the midst of the territory Joshua gave Caleb in recognition for Caleb’s decades of faithful service.
  • Othniel (Israel’s first and future judge-to-be after Joshua’s death) steps forward and handles the challenge, winning the hand of Caleb’s daughter.
  • Achsah is wise and ‘suggests’ to her husband that he ask his new father-in-law for a field.
  • We draw the implicit conclusion that Othniel accepts his wife’s suggestion and goes to Caleb with the request.  Apparently Caleb deeds over some land.
  • We learn a few verses down that the land Caleb gives his son-in-law is actually desert (‘land of the Negeb’)
  • Finally we read that Achsah saddles a donkey and pays her father a visit.

Now let’s look at the dialogue between father and daughter.  Caleb is direct.  As soon as she dismounts, he asks:  What do you want?  Achsah doesn’t mince words: Give me a blessing.

She then requests springs to water the land Dad has given them.  Employing the language of ‘blessing’, she humbly communicates that she doesn’t DESERVE what she wants, but that it would be GIFT.

She spells out just what kind of ‘blessing’ she has in mind.  She and Othniel will need access to life-giving water if they are to farm successfully and support their family and servants.

The good father immediately complies and gives her TWO springs, the upper and the lower springs. Achsah did not specify just what kind of springs they needed.  She left it to her dad to decide what was best.

Achsah’s confidence in her father impressed me.  When her husband comes back with the news that Dad had given them a parcel from the Negeb, Achsah doesn’t grumble.  Nor does she berate her husband (“Why did you settle for THAT kind of lot, you dummy.  It’s desert!”)

She saddles up and goes to Caleb, trusting in his fatherly goodness and generosity.  And Caleb satisfies her request.  He indeed blesses her with ownership of the entire springs, not just one spring.

This example of a wise young wife and faithful daughter shows me both how to act toward Mike, my husband whom God has called to lead our family and toward my good Father who owns ALL.

Husbands respond positively to gentle suggestions.  They appreciate wise and gentle counsel from their wives.

Fathers love to give good gifts to their children.  Our Father in heaven, of whom Caleb is a shadow and a type, is always ready to respond profusely to His kids’ needs and requests.

Lesson? Let us approach our Father in heaven with confidence since Jesus has done the hard job to rescue us, His rebellious children, from well-deserved eternal judgment.  May it NOT be said of us that ‘we have not because we ask not’.

Do you know anyone who has named her daughter Achsah?

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

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