Each of you is to take up a stone…according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you…when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord….These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4:5b-7, NIV)
My son-in-law is a former collegiate golfer. He is forty-two years old now, but he still bombs it! With the demands of life, he usually gets out on Friday afternoons. When he gets it going, it is marvelous to watch.
When Joe asked for my daughter’s hand in marriage twenty-plus years ago, I had some questions for him. The first two questions were: 1) Do you love Jesus? And 2) Do you play golf? He answered ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes!’ Those two answers got him in!
Of the many things I admire about Joe, the one I admire the most is his commitment to being a great dad to JP and Rosie. Joe loves “building memories.” Once, before moving to Georgia, I FaceTime’d him. When he answered, I saw Joe and JP on the floor playing with Legos.
When I asked Joe what he was building, he answered, “A relationship.” Over the years, I’ve noticed that he always returns with memorabilia everywhere he goes, whether on family vacations or golf expeditions with friends.
Returning from trips with some token of having been at a special place is not unusual, but Joe takes it to another level. For example, he has a large map on the wall with hundreds of famous courses and pins designating the ones he has played.
We purchase something in the present in hopes of stirring our emotions in the future about something from our past.
For me, it’s saving scorecards! If I play well, I hide these scorecards in my car’s console. I’ll peek at them before I tee it up to build confidence. It sounds pitiful, but looking back at good scores helps me overcome lagging confidence.
It’s not that different when telling others about Jesus! I once shared a seminary class with a former Marine deployed to Afghanistan twice. When our professor asked us to go into downtown Philadelphia to tell others about Christ, he looked at me and said, “I had no fear going into combat with an M27 or M4, but this scares the heck out of me.”
Like my classmate, when I sense the Spirit nudging me to take a step of faith and to overcome any timidity, I look back through my treasured memorabilia and remind myself, “He has used me in the past; he will use me in the present.”
Like the scorecards, I have spiritual “memorial stones” from the past forty-seven years of walking with Christ that signify Jesus can use anybody: a photograph preaching at UGA, many letters recounting pivotal moments in someone’s life, emails recalling a crucial time from the past, or a gift given in appreciation for communicating the gospel to a collegiate sports team.
These “spiritual memories,” like Joshua’s memorial stones, should be etched in our lives so that when God calls us to deeper faith and obedience, we are strengthened by revisiting those moments when God showed himself strong on our behalf in the past.
When Joshua led Israel through the Jordan and commanded the men of Israel to lay those memorial stones, he built an altar signifying that God had moved mightily in the past so future generations would know and trust God in the future.
When we obey God’s call to take the initiative in a kingdom-advancing adventure, like starting, leading, or partnering in Links Fellowships, we are laying memorial stones so that one day, our kids and grandkids will say, “My Parents and Grandparents saw God do mighty things in and through their lives!”
Prayer: Lord! May we live in such a way that our descendants will take up the banner of Christ and march forward to “take the land.”