"(For Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of harvest )" Joshua 3:15

art

OLD TESTAMENT PARENTHESES (6)

"(For Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of harvest )" Joshua 3:15

IT might seem that, since the Israelites had been journeying in the desert for so many years, the Lord could have chosen a better moment for them to enter the land than just at the season when the Jordan was at its fullest flood. Any other time would surely have been much easier for the crossing. Could He not have planned a better and an easier time for this operation?

NO! God's timings are always perfectly exact. This was no accident and it was no misfortune, though it may have seemed so to those of little faith. This was part of the divine purpose for proving God's complete sufficiency. It tested their faith, but it also demonstrated His supreme power.

THE whole undertaking was designed to do just this. "Hereby shall ye know that the living God is among you" Joshua told the people, "... the waters shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand as one heap" (vv.10-13).

GOD does not choose easy circumstances for us, His people, nor does He consult us as to what is the most suitable time; He glories in His own ability to take the waters at their flood and then lead us safely through them. Although He is the eternal God, He is absolutely accurate in the way He governs time -- even to the day and to the hour.

IN this case it is not difficult to understand why He brought the people to the crossing at this particular time, for the harvest was all important. No sooner were they over the river than it was time for the manna to cease, since there was food in abundance. "The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land; unleavened bread and roasted grain" (5:11). God had exactly arranged the time so that the harvest would be waiting for them as soon as they had moved forward into the land.

THE Lord is the Lord of the harvest. He is also Lord of the overflowing floods. Let us cease, then, from complaining or questioning His guidance and His timing of events in our lives. 'If only it had been sooner; if only the river had been shallow enough for fording' we foolishly murmur. With God there can be no 'if only!' His ways are perfect and His timing is exactly right. Blessed indeed are those who can wholeheartedly declare: "My times are in thy hand."

----------------