“Wait…What?”
Personal Wellness
By Rev. Alan Shaw
I confess. I thought about taking this “blog day” off since it’s Christmas week and I (like many of you) am busy, but my bible reading this morning provided a thought I could not ignore. Merry Christmas…and happy reading.
The end of the book of Joshua finds the tribes of Israel moving to their allotted territories. The tribes that choose to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan River are told they can now return home with the urging to “love the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Joshua 22:5b). Just a few verses later, we read those eastern tribes built “an altar of imposing size” (v10) by the Jordan river. Believing they have already fallen into idol worship, “the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them” (v12). Can you imagine the leaders of Israel receiving news of this “imposing altar”? I picture them thinking “wait…what? We JUST talked about this”.
There have been plenty of times as a father and husband when my kids or my wife would say something and my initial gut reaction was “are you serious…we just talked about this…what were you thinking?” (Of course, there are probably more times when my wife thought that about me). Your emotions start flaring up inside as the story you tell yourself is how much they disrespect you as they ignore your advice and go do their own thing anyway. To make matters worse, we may share our one-sided feelings with other family members or friends, who are MORE than willing to share their opinions, fanning the flames to bring “the whole assembly out to make war against us”.
But when confronted with their apparent breach of faith, the eastern tribes share their side of the story: an altar, not for sacrifices to idols, but as a witness to show later generations that tribes on both sides of the Jordan serve and worship the same God. But that history lesson came from a place of fear: “we did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you…You have no portion in the Lord’” (v24-25).
Over this Christmas and into the new year, pay attention to the gut reaction that says “wait…what?” because it may lead to conflict that can be avoided with open communication. The note in my Lutheran Study Bible sums it up well: “Believers still carry their old sinful natures; therefore, misunderstandings or false accusations sometimes flare up among them. But the power of God’s Word and Spirit working in our hearts can bring about genuine reconciliation and peace”.
Our personal wellness includes God’s Word and Spirit working in our hearts when we are tempted to let emotions take control instead. If you are in conflict with someone today, consider reaching out to me or other SED reconcilers to walk with you in a journey that can bring genuine reconciliation and peace.
Rev Alan Shaw is an Assistant Pastor at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Cary, NC and a part-time Transitional Interim Minister at Peace Lutheran Church in Goldsboro, NC. He is a retired Army officer and serves as a resource for the SED and LCMS with Christian Conciliation training, workshops, and reconciliation cases. He can be reached at alan@restoringharmonyllc.com.