Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the LORD had commanded Moses. – Deuteronomy 34:9

Today's Scripture Reading (March 22, 2025): Deuteronomy 34

If there is one thing Moses did right, it was this: He trained a successor who would take over after him. It is the one thing that Joshua didn't do. Joshua failed to prepare the nation for a time after Joshua had stepped down from his position of leadership, and because of that, Israel struggled.

Many years ago, I saw a cartoon picturing an older woman in a church going to the pastor's office to tell him how to do his job. The pastor did nothing the way Pastor Smith had completed the task. And so, she wanted to set the new pastor straight. Finally, the pastor had had enough, and he walked over to the corner of his office and grabbed a shovel. The final frame contained these words: "I agree that Pastor Smith was a great pastor. Here is a shovel; why don't you go and dig him up."

The truth is that God's focus extends beyond us. As a result, our focus also needs to extend beyond our current circumstances. We must plan for what comes next, even though we know we may not be part of that future. 

My first ministry position was as a bi-vocational (which meant I had a "real job" along with the job of being a pastor). And I remember my farewell from that position. After the obligatory singing of Michael W. Smith's Friends, the Christian Goodbye song, someone got up to say some words of encouragement, except that they weren't all that encouraging. A parent of one of the teens rose and declared, "Now we get to see if what you built here is of God or just the result of the strength of personality." While the words were scary, I understood the intent. God's plan stretched beyond me to something totally new. But it is not a question that we ask very often. We seem to believe that our purpose here ends when we leave. However, that is not a God way of speaking. 

Here is the truth. Moses's true power was not revealed in the first forty years of his life. Then, Moses held the power that we often dream of, but that wasn't the power Moses required for the task God was about to place before the prophet. The power of Moses was also not the miracles he performed in the last third of his life and his true power had nothing to do with the shepherding of sheep in the middle third, although all of that shaped Moses into the man he was. Moses's true power was in the legacy that he left for Israel to follow.

His legacy would have been different if Moses had died at forty or eighty. The Moses that we remember, the legacy of Moses that has led Israel for millennia, was forged in those last years of his life. The legacy of Moses was forged in those moments when Moses, the ruler, and Moses, the shepherd, let go of all that was inside of him and allowed God the privilege to be the power within him. Not that Moses didn't make mistakes. The very reason that Moses was not going to enter the Promised Land was because of one of Moses's moments where he made a mistake and refused to let God rule. But in the end, what we remember about Moses was that he allowed the power of God to shine through him.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Joshua 1