The Memorial Stones

Do you know the feeling when a certain verse keeps coming back to you? Reading the word, it doesn’t matter where you turn, this thing just lingers in your minds? I know this feeling and I love it! The excitement that God is maybe highlighting something and want’s to enlarge your understanding. I think the only way to find out is to go there and take time with God to ask Him.Reading the book of Joshua it felt like I had a lot of these moments. The book is so filled with great stories and insights. And it builds up my faith just to read the stories of God in the old days! How He worked through people and situations to form and keep a people for Himself is amazing! And this is so tight in with the verse that keeps coming back to me in Joshua 4, in my bible having the title: “The Memorial Stones.”

The context of this chapter is that God starts to lead His people into their promised land by the hand of His servant Joshua. The first step of their journey is to cross the river Jordan, and to show His power and commitment to them hey cut of the springs of the river so that it dried out before them! After the crossing of the people God gives a commentmend that might be just as important as the miracle itself:

And commending them, saying: ‘now take for yourselves twelve men from the people, one man from every tribe, and commend them saying: “take for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan, were the priest feet stood firm. You shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight.

That this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come saying: ‘what do these stones mean to you?’ Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. And these stones shall be a memorial to the children of Israel forever. (Joshua 4:6-7)

So often I read something in the word, and I just know that what I read is a mine worth digging in forever! It is just full with precious treasures. For me this is one of those.

And one of the treasures it builds in my heart is that I have a burning passion to place these kinds of memorial stones for my children! To live my life in such a way that through it God can create witnesses for the coming generation that will show that God is for them and with them. It is said a few verses later that: “These stones are there to this day” (Joshua 4:9). No, I don’t know or these stones are still standing there, but I do know that the spiritual memorial they stand for will remain forever! So no matter how you place your stones, make sure you do it, for they will remain as a witness of the only true God.

And the coming generation will need these stones more than we can imagine. Because as the one generation died, the other arose. And it is said that: “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the lord nor the work which he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10)

Just like that! In one generation!

So I hope this blog encourages you to do all you can to live your life for God, that you might leave memorial stones for our children.