piling up water

The weather has been so nice, it’s hard to believe we got snow just a couple of weeks ago. Although we probably dodged another significant snow, but  it rained instead.

I thought of that rainy day this morning while I was reading from Joshua 3. A couple of guys at work were saying how glad they were that it was raining. “You don’t have to shovel rain,” they said. But one guy said, “Yeah, but my kids love the snow. You can’t put rain in a pile, either.”

It’s true that I can’t, but God can pile up water. That’s what I was reading about this morning, in Joshua 3:14-17 “So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. 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. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.”

I'd like to see that – water piled up in a heap. What an amazing God we have! He can make heaps of water, or make a dry pathway through it if he wants. He split open the ground to swallow up the complainers. He sent fire from heaven to burn up Sodom and Gomorrah. When God spoke, serpents and diseases and great big fish all chastised his disobedient people. Quail flew in massive coveys to their deaths to become food. God sent rain on Noah for 40 days, and stopped the rain for three years during the time of Elijah. Is there anything our God can’t do? This is his creation, and it obeys him completely.

But then, why don’t ?. Of all the things God created, why does only the human soul rebel?

I know there are deep theological discussions here about free will and what it means to be elect. I just wish sometimes that I could commit acts of faith as readily as the natural world obeys God. I can’t even get the easy things right, like getting my church committee work done; my wayward heart would rather watch March Madness or play a computer game. I’ll never be able to do the hard faith tasks, like heaping up water.

But I don’t have to. Some things are reserved for God. He works all day, every day, even when I don’t. And he welcomes me again the days I do show back up to work. My salvation and sanctification are his might works of grace, not mine. And maybe as hard, or as easy, for him as piling up water.