The GPS vs. the Flint Knives

I do not like to waste time. In fact, I'm so addicted to not wasting time that I shatter the "men don't ask directions" stereotype. If I feel the slightest bit anxious about directions, I'll stop and ask directions. I hate the inefficiency of getting lost.

Of course, for Christmas I bought our family a GPS. Masculinity safely intact and I don't get lost. Everyone wins.

Sometimes my addiction to efficiency means that I miss what God wants to do. Because sometimes God's plan is for me to waste time doing something that seems less important at the time.

I was reminded of this as I read Joshua 5 this morning. The entire nation crosses the Jordan river, forty years to the day after the Passover in Egypt and the subsequent similar crossing of the Red Sea. The nations that currently occupy the Promised Land hear about this and tremble. The Israelites are full of confidence and ready to take the land.

And then God issues an interesting and very uncomfortable and inefficient command: circumcise all the men. They had been wandering for forty years and none of the baby boys had been circumcised as had been arranged with Abraham as a sign of God's covenant with his people.

So rather than leverage the momentum and strength and confidence of the people after they cross the Jordan, they make flint knives and circumcise all the men. Ouch. Easy tiger, you're not going anywhere for a while. In fact, they hang out and camp for two weeks in order to heal.

Talk about taking the wind out of the proverbial sails. They could have done the deed after the conquest of the land, it's probably what I would have suggested to God. But this mattered and it mattered now, even if it wasn't terribly efficient or practical.

And it mattered because the "who" is always a higher priority to God than the "what." Who we are is of exponentially greater importance than the things we do. And this sign of circumcision was always to be a reminder to all the people that they were a unique, set-apart people. This identity as God's chosen ones was the fuel for the work ahead. Who before what.

Meditating over this passage this morning reminded me that God's timing just isn't my timing. It reminds me that even when everything circumstantially says "go!" God might be saying "wait." I'm quick to try to read the circumstances for guidance. I'm not always as quick to actually ask God if it's his timing or not.

And I'm certainly much more interested in what I'm doing than who I'm becoming. Oi, how often my priorities need to be re-centered, corrected, purified, re-aligned.

This is not to say that God doesn't use our circumstances to communicate with us and direct our paths. It's simply to say that our circumstances aren't the final arbiter of God's will for us. And if he makes it clear that we are to wait, even when everything and everyone around us says "go," (even the GPS) we move at our own peril.