Contentment: If only (Keith Nurse)

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Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

Joshua 7:7

 

A few chapters before, God held back the flow of the river Jordan while the whole of Israel crossed on dry ground, which we are told He did “so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

 

After forty years of wandering in the desert they had finally entered the Promised Land, and yet facing their first setback in their new homeland - which, incidentally, happened because they disobeyed God - they long to go back to a life they’ve just escaped from.

 

One of the greatest blockages to contentment is regret. If only I had chosen a different place to live, picked a different school for my children, spent more time with my parents in their later years, encouraged my friend when she was having a tough time at work …

 

Sometimes we don’t make the wisest choices, but focusing on the past blinds us to how God is blessing us now, and to what He wants to do in and through us in the future. Our gracious God forgives, restores and renews, and longs to release us from our slavery to regrets, so let’s ask His Holy Spirit to highlight how we need to move on and to bring us freedom.

 

Lord for ourselves; in living power remake us -
self on the cross and Christ upon the throne,
past put behind us, for the future take us:
Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone.

Amen

 

Keith Nurse

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