I love, near the end of Joshua’s life, after having reminded the Children of Israel of all the guidance, all the protection, all the promises kept, and all the miracles God had given to get them to their promised land (miracles that had their beginnings in the lives of ancestors who came long before them) when he then boldly tells them to make a choice: serve that God—the God who began working things for their good before they even took their first breaths, and who continued to offer that support every day after that through every difficulty and every challenge; or … serve the popular gods and ideals of the world around them.
“[C]hoose you this day whom ye will serve,” Joshua tells them. And then, lest there be any doubt where his own loyalty lay: “[B]ut as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
My mom had a large round magnet that hung on our fridge during my growing up years. (Maybe it’s still there.) It pictured a cozy cottage nestled behind a clump of aspen trees with those words from Joshua printed next to them.
Every time I’d read “but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”, I’d feel a rising in me. Something like King Benjamin’s people must have felt when he gave his similarly rousing speech. “Yes! This is the desire of my heart! I choose the Lord!”
And that must have been the same feeling Joshua’s words inspired in the Children of Israel because they stood up and shouted (well, I like to think they shouted anyway): “God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; For the Lord our God, he it is that … did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed: … therefore will we also serve the Lord; for he is our God.”
In the past, Joshua had them erect monuments of stone to remind themselves (and their children who would come after them) of God’s hand and miracles; and he did the same thing now. He had a large stone placed under an oak tree to witness to them, every time they saw it, of their promise to serve and remember God and his hand in their lives.
And the Children of Israel did remember for some time. But eventually … “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.”
It makes me sad that somewhere along the line the miracles quit being told, the guidance quit being remembered, and the faith quit being passed down.
It makes me want to do a much better job of passing on to my children the stories of the great things God has done for us.
And it makes me so grateful that my mom invested (and continues to invest) so much diligent energy (even when we weren’t always listening or seeming to care) in making sure we knew of God’s hand in our family—going back for generations; of making sure we knew of the miracles we’d inherited as part of our family’s story, and of the decisions, sacrifices, and reliance on God stretching back into the centuries … that have extended forward to bless us.
As I’ve aged, I feel that thread of faith connecting me to my ancestors who came before. And these gravestones (that I’ve visited since before memory) have become for me a bit like Joshua’s large stone rolled under that oak—memorials and witnesses that help me remember to say and hope with them “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”.
(Thomas and Mary Ann's nine lost children. Can you imagine? It's almost too much to even read all those dates. They had two children who survived. And my great grandpa was the only twin from among their three sets of twins to live beyond childhood.)
(I suppose it would have been better if Starling and I were also in this picture. Alas, I was managing the camera. And ... Starling was managing me.)
(The Toulatos are actually no relation. But Hans was SO excited when he announced that he'd found Jesus's tomb. And then so embarrassed and crying when everyone corrected him. So then a big fuss needed to be made over how special the grave stone truly was and how neat to know the people there loved Jesus so much. And then ... everyone needed their picture by it. So. Hope to meet you some day Toulatos family. :))
4 comments:
HAhaha! Oh! The Toulatos! I love them. And i love Hans. And I love your mom for telling all those stories.
But here's what disturbs me about that Joshua quote. I've felt those sane stirrings and determination myself, and I love to read about how the people shouted in agreement, but...how could he so confidently say me AND MY HOUSE? I keep wondering about it. It would be my only wish for that to be true, me and my house. But all I seem to be able to say for sure is "me." and that breaks my heart because all I want is for "my house" to choose it too. But what if they don't? What if they don't?
*same stirrings. Though if we're going to bring sanity into it, I probably feel INsane stirrings more often than sane ones🤔
I thought that very same thing with a small pang of … pain (pang of pain?) as I typed this. I have that conviction! But how can we say it for our kids! I know very well, from far too many loved ones, that we cannot. We can try and instill it in them and then we can only hope. So either, in Joshua’s day, one could rule one’s family and who they would and would not serve with a much more iron like fist, or maybe his family, by this point, as he was near death, we’re old enough and committed enough that he already knew. While we are still in the hoping stage.
Yeah. I guess we don't know, but I like thinking of that, actually--him being able to think on his family and see where they were and say, "Yes. Me and my house have chosen the Lord." Wouldn't that be amazing? But you're right...it's still just the hoping stage for us. (But we SHOULD hope. And trust.)
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