Joshua 23 - Cling to the LORD your God

LINK: Joshua 23

BACKGROUND

Joshua called all the leaders to give them a charge to "cling to the LORD their God" (23:8). If they took diligent heed (23:11) to love Him, they would have the LORD to fight for them, but if they would "cling to the rest of the nations" which remain among them, the LORD [would] not be with them.

REFLECTION (written in 2008)

The last couple of weeks have been interesting for me. My eldest brother died suddenly on July 7th. This makes four deaths in my family in the last fifteen months. My brother's death hit me the hardest because, contrary to my mom (who died on December 7th), Bill did not "cling" to the Lord.

I knew where my mother was going, and it was a joy to sit at her death bed and pray with her in her slide toward heaven. Not so with my brother, he was found utterly alone, face down in his house with evidence of alcohol strewn about the room. He was estranged from his children and divorced from his wife, all because he chose to cling to alcohol.

While I do not know where he was with the Lord at the final moments of his life, I know that he had always rejected every offer, even when he spent a year and a half at Green Oaks Ranch, a Christian drug and alcohol rehab center that also happens to be where I "came to cling" to the Lord in the fall of 1969 when it was just a ranch for kids and not for drug and alcohol rehab. Bill did not "cling to the Lord" but chose to "cling to the bottle" that had become an idol in his life. His end was tragic. I am heartbroken. 

It has been up and down these last couple of weeks for me, but one thing I know and can always count on is the LORD. I always have Him to cling to in times of trials and grief. He is faithful to me through every hill and valley. Praise God!

APPLICATION

Who or what do you cling to? When you go through times of trial, do you cling to the Lord or something/somebody else? Anything we cling to other than the Lord is an idol in our life. Talk to the Lord about that and cling to Him today.

PRAYER

Here is a video called "Clinging to the Cross" for your prayerful meditation: