God rescues, but we are forgetful. God saves, but we are prone to short-term memory. God provides, but we are in continual danger of self-sufficiency. Yet even in this, even in our tendency to enjoy the benefits of salvation without acknowledging our saviour, God’s grace continues to extend toward our calloused hearts.

The roar of the waters, mixed with the churning brown torrent, were a forbidding objection, “You shall not pass!” A flooded Jordan was no Red Sea, yet the effect was just as devastating. Cut off from the promised inheritance, it would be easy to lose hope and instead cultivate dissatisfaction, after all, they had been culturally conditioned for such a response.

But God.

I love that sweet interjection; that grace-filled declaration of a God who is not content to sit and let us wallow in our own forgetfulness. When God acts, creation bends to his command. When God speaks, light erupts in dark places and paths appear in ways untrodden.

In the account of Israel’s redemption from Egypt, it is easy to pass from the Wilderness to the Promised Land without pausing too long at Joshua 4, but to do so would be a disastrous shortcut. God has much to teach us about ourselves here.

As Joshua steps forward in obedience, as the priests place their feet into the churning waters of the flooded Jordan, Israel discovers what has always been true of our God—He is a God who saves. More significantly, He is a God who saves by grace. What had only been a story of a memory to all but two in that company, quickly firmed beneath their feet as they slowly passed from punishment to promise.

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