Josh 12-15 Sick Cell, Healthy Cell, Metaphors for Life

March 14th, Joshua 12-15

       Taking control of all the land God is offering is a lifetime of work. Rooting out every inhabitant feels a little like the "Whack-a-Mole" game in the arcade. About the time you have one enemy out, another creeps back in. Today's reading is also a look at boundaries. Where each tribe is going to end up, how much land for each group.
       As much as I'd like to talk about piles of stones, boundary lines, and rooting out enemies, I'd like to think of it more as a metaphor for your life and mine for our devotion this morning.
       Rooting out our enemies: This is certainly a theme for entering the promised land. To me the metaphor for life is the idea of casting out the enemy in our life. The struggle we have with sin looks a whole lot like the Israelites struggle with their enemies. Trying to live at peace with them, losing energy to care so much about the last little tribes, making peace with them (accidentally) like yesterday's story. Fighting a little less now hoping it will go away only to find out in the next chapter or season of life those enemies have grown strong in some secret parts of our kingdom. Sometimes in our life we find a big battle in our life is the result of not fighting a lot of little battles along the way.
       Boundaries: The story here is talking about physical boundaries. It's what says yes to this and no to that. Somethings can cross the boundary, somethings cannot. This metaphor is applied to issues of leadership in a great book I highly recommend called "A Failure of Nerve." In it, the author compares good healthy leadership as coming from people with boundaries. He also does a lot of medical illustrations concerning the lack of boundaries and the invasiveness of disease. A healthy person becomes sick when diseased cells begin to attack and overwhelm healthy cells. The body has an ability to fight back and repel invasive cells that seek to destroy health. If the body can't do it alone, then science has come up with a way to provide help in some instances so health can be restored and invasive sick cells can be put in their place.
       Take the life of a mother out shopping with their 3 year old. A three year old wants what they want when they want it. They'll cry, scream, beg, kick, pinch, bite until they get what they want. Those little ones are invasive, they have no boundary and they will take over your space if you let them. It takes a healthy boundary to put the child in their place. In this case discipline is the antibody to take something invasive and make it be healthy and not sick. A healthy leader needs to know when to be strong and stand up to the invasiveness and when to give help and encouragement at the right time as well. When are those times...like we learned yesterday...Inquire of the Lord!!