Saturday 26 November 2022

Psalm 118:19-29

Background

So we reach the end of the week's readings which has catalogued the last days of Moses. We have seen him encouraging the people, reminding, warning and still leading them in their relationship with God.

We have heard his own faith offered in song and in warnings to the tribes. We have found encouragement about the presence of God and we have seen a man who has kept faith with God and the people through many years of wandering and unfaithfulness. 

Although our passage for today speaks of a triumphant ending with stories to tell that would pass from generation to generation we also find a God who has made provision for the onward life of the people – God has given a new leader, Joshua, a man of prowess in battle who is also wise.

Joshua was a very different person to Moses. He was not sent to do the things that Moses did in Egypt and beyond but has been chosen and ordained to lead the people on into the Promised Land.

God has been with the people in their journeying. God is with the people in their loss of Moses. God is also before the people in the change of leadership which will take them into their new situation.

It is relatively easy to look back and see a God who has been with us. We hold faith in a God who is with us in the here and now but it is easy to forget that God also goes before us preparing for our future life. What a faithful God!

To Ponder:

• Looking back, where have you been made most aware of God with you?
• Looking at the here and now, where is God with you?
• Looking ahead, what can you see laid before you that may be God’s leading?

Prayer

Lord of all time and space, you called your servant Moses to keep faith with you for the whole of his life, through all the wandering of the people, and through all the faithlessness and failure he faced. Help us to see you in the everyday, identify your presence in our past and hold on to the faith and hope that you go before us into what is yet to be. Amen.