Month: April 2023

To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.  

Joshua 24:4, New King James Version

1. Sons or Lands? 

To Isaac, God gave the gift of sons.  To Esau, God gave a territory.  To Jacob, there was no apparent inheritance given.  He was sent off into exile.  What does that mean?  Which inheritance is nobler: sons or lands or ‘Nothing’?  To one, He gave men; to the other, He gave property; and to the last, nothing.  Which is a more attractive possession in the short term, and which in the long run: sons in whom to sacrificially invest for a lasting harvest, or a ready vast land to cultivate for a sooner harvest of perishable crops? 

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20 For the Lord hardened their hearts and caused them to fight the Israelites. So they were completely destroyed without mercy.  23 So Joshua took control of the entire land … as their special possession …. So the land finally had rest from war

Joshua 11:20, 23; New Living Translation.

The sun warms, but it can also burn.  God is love, but He is also consuming fire.  Normally, nobody wants wars; but sometimes that it what it takes to gain peace and enlarge territory.  Peace lovers would often avoid a fight at every possible cost, therefore, sometimes, God Himself sets them up for the very fight, as a means to permanently eliminating their foes and enlarging their territory.  

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Human comprehension of spiritual reality is sometimes at odds with that reality, which does not eliminate the reality.  Sometimes what God assures is not what we see.  In fact, what He assures sometimes seems to run so counter to common sense that we are forced to wonder if we were not being fooled.  

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1. When Nature is Teacher 

Nature provides us with profound lessons that we often miss in our haste through labyrinthine libraries and the riddles of barren sages.  In “The Tables Turned,” William Wordsworth the English Romantic poet appropriately and passionately calls, “Come forth into the light of things, / Let Nature be your teacher.”

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