Stating the Obvious

God loves to speak to me by stating the obvious. I'm glad I'm not the only one - none less than Joshua heard God tell him the obvious as well.

When Joshua was very old, the Lord told him, “You are very old, and a great deal of land remains to be conquered."(Josh. 13:1-2)

When Joshua was old, God said, "You're old." I love that about Him! He doesn't let me get by with anything ... if I'm being selfish, that's what He calls it. If I'm tapdancing around sin, He goes straight to the core. He challenges me on my rationalizations and my realities. In short, He regularly states the obvious.

The problem is that I don't always want to hear it! I want the spiritualized version, the one with all the big words and turns of phrases that make me look better. I want a loophole - and He refuses to give me one. Teaching children's church and occasionally attending a Spanish worship service have taught me that boiling things down to the basics is an important lesson God wants me to learn - probably because He knows my tendency to make things more complex than they have to be.

So when He says, "Go into all the world..." I really don't have to look up the meaning of the words in three dictionaries. When He says "Go" He probably means ... "Go". When He says "all" He probably means ... "all." Being part of the "Go" is one of the most obvious things we can do to walk with Him. And if we aren't "going" then we should be involving in actively sending. That's what so many of you are doing - taking God up on His obvious word.

This Christmas season, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, please receive from me my heartfelt thanks for being such a great example of obedience to a command that God made incredibly obvious.