Fully Passing Over

When all the nation had fully passed over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, Joshua 4:1 (Amplified Bible)

There is a scene from the movie, Titanic, that grips me each time I witness it. It takes place after the Titanic has gone down and the two main characters are clinging to each other. Rose is on a trunk and Jack is in the water. There comes a point when Rose realizes Jack is dead and although she doesn’t want to let go of him, she does. She knows from that point on her life will never be the same but there is a life she must choose to live. That is her “fully passing over” moment. Letting go of what was to take hold of what is to be.

Each of us are on a journey with God and within that journey are times when we must also let go of what we want to hold on to in order to embrace what lies ahead. Until we do that, we remain frozen in a place in which we are not meant to stay. The children of Israel were meant to fully pass over the Jordan River. They were not destined to camp there! It would separate them from the only past they had known. God’s intent was to not only free them from their past but to free them from the pull of their past.

Some of us have yet to fully pass over our Jordan to a new aspect of the Christian life. It may be a former job we hold on to in our mind. A former relationship. A former possession. A former dwelling place. A former church. A former way that God worked in our life. Whatever it is that we are holding on to, God is speaking to us the words of Isaiah 43:19, Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

How do we begin to see and experience the new thing God is referring to? By letting go of our desire for the past to still be a part of our present and by choosing the new over the old. It may require repentance and confession on our part for wanting our way rather than God’s way and to accept the forgiveness God will extend to us. Those are the keys to freedom that God offers each one of us.

For me, I am picturing myself on Rose’s trunk, letting go of the ones from my past that I want to hold on to. Seeing the death of what was and turning toward the life God is offering me. He has finally helped me to come to the point of wanting the new thing He is doing. Oddly enough, there is no sorrow now but rather peace and anticipation.

Father, it has taken several years to come to this point. Thank you for persistently working to bring me to this place. It is new and it is of You. Amen.

Painting Pictures of Egypt - Sara Groves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcIA4Cnj6j4

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