"The Lord said to Joshua, `Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?'" (Joshua 7:10). Joshua had just complained: "If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!" (v.7c.) The grass is always greener on the other person's turf, and less trouble to maintain, so we think. Moses heard the dismal lament: "But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, `Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!'" (Numbers 21:4,5). Joshua cried out in disappointment and God understood, but God didn't allow Joshua to remain prostrate on the ground in grief and weakness. Joshua was to arise in faith and go to work. "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do" (James 2:18); "Act with courage..." (2 Chronicles 19:11c). Trust is a duty; to rise and prove it by action is a duty, also. "All at once an angel touched [Elijah] and said, `Get up and eat'" (1 Kings 19:5). After we are refreshed and have strength enough to get up, then we must go up: ascend the mountain to holiness of thought. God cannot feed a mind that is insensible. There is a meeting of minds on the mountain. This is where we hear the Divine Whisper. The mountain is a spiritual retreat; this is where God sent Elijah and where He sends us. "Leave your cave of despondency and come up to Me so I can give you a new song and new trust -- and a new thrust!" He says, "Come up to Me that I may give you rest of mind ... but you must have the will to meet My mind and will. As long as you make no effort, then I cannot make it for you." Out of many of our troubles there is, I say, a way of escape; but we require to get up, and to look for the way of escape. All that we require in such circumstances is strength to wait. The working together of the various events of life is of course a process. That very idea of working together involves a succession of effects and of results. The good must come (Anonymous). |
