Joshua 1:9. (The Message)
Haven’t I commanded you? Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid; don’t get discouraged. God, your God, is with you every step you take.
A few months ago, I left Lake Junaluska to come home and saw a spider on my side mirror. She had worked the night before to build a web right there. She could hide behind the mirror, let her prey get in the web and then appear to do the thing spiders do...which are too gruesome to mention in a devotion. “Ha!” I thought, “Just wait until that spider feels the power of this Jeep roaring down the road.” I closed the door and the spider scampered into the mirror casing. Somewhere out on I-40, she came out. I was doing 55. “Ha!” I thought, “She is history; blown away by the winds of fate.” Her web was flapping in the wind. And she held on. The downhill came. I went up to 65. “Ha!” I thought, “The power of the Jeep will prevail.” She hung on, flapping with the web. This was starting to get old. Discounting the posted speed limit, I scanned the road for law enforcement and put it up to 75. She and her web flapped even more. “Ha!” I thought, “the end arrives!” I let out a maniacal laugh. She calmly crawled back into the mirror casing. For all I know she arrived safely in New Bern or maybe jumped Jeep at a rest stop. But she was tenacious.
Moses’ death put Joshua in charge. The conquest of the land was about to begin. God told Joshua (in the verse above) not to be timid or discouraged. People have panned 2020 as the year they want to forget. Every time we think it can’t get any stranger, it does. As I wake up this Thursday morning after the vice-presidential debate, the talk is more about the fly!
I think back on that spider. Blowing around. Hanging on. Finding shelter. But undefeated. God, our God, is with us every step we take.
Ha!
Jesus, Savior, pilot me over life’s tempestuous sea;
Unknown waves before me roll, hiding rock and treacherous shoal;
Chart and compass came from thee:
Jesus, Savior, pilot me. Amen.
Pastor Rick Moser
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