JOSHUA 3

Having a past is part of what it means to be a human being. And our past life is a rich tapestry of events and experiences that has shaped the way we think about and look at the world around us. So, one of the things I really love about God is that He honors our heritage—where we have come from. He acknowledges our past and finds ways to make connections to it in order to make a connection with us.

You can see it right here in Joshua 3: "And the Lord said to Joshua, 'Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: "When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river"'... Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing... The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground." (vs 7-8; 15-17)

Did you notice what’s going on here? God is consecrating a new leader in Israel, and He’s doing it by plucking from Israel’s history one of its most miraculous and memorable events—the crossing of the Red Sea. In effect, God has reached back into Israel’s past, seeking to make a connection with a new generation of His people by re-creating a story they all knew and loved. That day, all the Israelites who went into the Promised Land experienced a little, mini Red-Sea-crossing.

I don’t think that was a coincidence. I think that, because God loves us so much, He is as interested in our past as He is in our future. That’s true in your own relationships, isn’t it? When you meet and fall in love with someone, you don’t have the attitude that you don’t care about what’s happened in their lives before the moment you met them. No—their past has contributed to the person you fell in love with! So, if we are interested in the past lives of our loved ones, how much more is God interested in us and our histories?!

God knows where you’ve come from, and that’s a part of you that He loves and cherishes. He will find ways to celebrate it and commemorate it in your relationship with Him. And by connecting with you over the past, He will hope to strengthen your bond with Him far into the future. He remembers you yesterday, today, and forever!