One of the greatest leaders we find in the Bible is Joshua. He demonstrates courage, faith and total obedience to God. He submits himself to God with humility. He is a servant-leader who faces many challenges both among his own Israelite people and from Canaanite enemies. He becomes God’s catalyst for victory after victory. He shows himself both spiritual and practical.
He also plans for a future day when he will no longer lead his people.
In Joshua 13, we find Joshua in the latter years of his life, “old and advanced in years,” perhaps nearing the age of 100. In spite of all the battles fought and victories won, the Lord reminds him that “much of the land remains to be possessed.”
God has given Joshua a great work, and he has done it well, relying on God all the way, defying the naysayers who threatened his life (see Numbers 14). But he cannot and will not fulfill the whole task himself. He must soon pass the torch to the next generation.
God always gives us more than we can possibly do alone. The vision He gives to us is larger and greater than we are. He expects us to do our part and prepare others to take it from there. If Joshua had done it all himself, he would have gotten a “big head” and thought, “Look what I just did!”
Our prayers and actions are never in vain. Combined with the prayers and actions of past and coming generations, they produce what others have described as “generational synergy.”
At this stage, Joshua had to trust God to complete through others what he, Joshua, had begun. Perhaps, it has taken longer than he thought it would, but God is never late. He is preparing Israel—and the world—for an even “greater miracle” that Joshua could not fully understand.
The plan of God would continue its fulfillment through people like the Judges, Samuel, David, the Prophets, John the Baptist—and Jesus. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit and the ekklesia (that’s us), we would do our part. Each generation prepares the next generation for the next stage in God’s great redemptive plan.
The Book of Judges is a grim reminder of what happens when one generation fails to pass the torch of faith to the next. A later generation failed to pass on its spiritual history so that their children did not know the Lord and what He had done. They became like pagans, worshipping false gods, living as victims and cowards rather than victors.
So far, our present generation has lived with little value for history or knowledge of those spiritual giants who went before us. Too many believers in Jesus act more like victims than the victors Christ made them to be.
Bobb Biehl has written and spoken of a “500 year plan,” a vision God gives to us toward which we can pray, work and pass along to those who come after us, even those who come long after us.
What preparations are you making now for that “greater miracle” in your own life and ministry that gains the whole “Promised Land” God has in mind for you, your children and grandchildren and for the world in which they will live?
From the Desk of Valson Abraham 