Walking With Christ

Joshua 24:13 I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.(ESV)

A bit of context. Joshua is about to pass the baton to the next generation. He gathers all of the people of Israel at a place called Shechem to deliver one last message from the Lord. He wants to renew the covenant with God. He describes the journey from just before Abraham and into the promised land to remind the people of where they came. He reminds them of the struggles their people had and the many, almost uncountable number of, times that God came through and delivered them an impossible victory. He reminded them that it wasn’t by anything they had done that they were still alive and thriving.

This verse is like so much in our lives. I work for a company that I didn’t start doing work that began long before I was even born with equipment that was supplied to me. One step back, I live in a house that I didn’t build. I have rebuilt the stupid thing but that was done with tools and materials that I didn’t make myself. The lumber I used for the repairs was shaped somewhere else by someone else. The lumber was cut from a tree that I never saw using tools that I never touched. Even farther back, the tree was planted in soil that I will likely never see by people or natural forces that I will not likely ever interact with myself. Even if I do manage to find out where the tree came from and walk on that pot of earth, I could not cause the tree to grow. I didn’t make the tree. I didn’t make the dirt the tree grew in. I didn’t make the nutrients the tree used to grow. I didn’t have anything to do with the lumber in my house until I pulled it off of a shelf in a store.

Go all the way back to the beginning. Adam and Eve walked in a garden that they didn’t plant eating food that grew from those very plants.

This reminds me of a joke that I’ll leave on.

A scientist was having a conversation with God and boasting that science had removed the need for God. God asked the scientist to elaborate. Of course, the scientist was all too happy to show off to prove that we could create life exactly the same way that God did when He made Adam.

God chuckles because He has a sense of humor and knows where this is going. Then God says, “Ok, show me what you mean.”

The scientist bends down and starts shaping the dust below his feet into the shape of a person. The scientist is excitedly describing the process. “See? We can make a person exactly the same way You did in the beginning. We can even improve a bit on the original design to remove some of the flaws.”

God interrupts, “Hang on. Get your own dirt.”