Reflection Territory: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     What does your inheritance look like in family, friends, gifts, and place?

2.     Are you grateful or resistant or uncertain?

3.     Are there areas that need to be rebuilt or begin planting?

4.     How does each affect your faith walk with purpose?

Share: What has kept you from being settled in God’s inheritance?  What have you embraced with joy?

Territory: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Joshua 19

“…distributed by lot at Shiloh before the Lord, at the entrance of the house of meeting.” Joshua 19:51

Before the Lord, at His tent of meeting, the lots were drawn. Some were tribe general and some were tribe specific. Judah had a higher portion but as the share was too big for them, the tribe of Simeon “obtained an inheritance within their inheritance.”

And by the Lord’s command Joshua was given a town, which he chose, in the hill country of Ephraim, and then he rebuilt and settled there.

The tribe of Danites lost their territory and so fought against Leshom to take possession there. And there they settled in. None of these lots were wrapped up in a completed package. Each required a choice to settle the land. Their inheritance needed to become a lived in experience.

We also have received from the Lord an inheritance, actually a double heritage, to be lived within another’s inheritance. We receive our physical inheritance into a life of cultural heritage and family, and we receive our gift of spiritual heritage by Jesus’ cross of sacrifice. Each individual’s gifts and talents and boundaries unique and yet a portion of His whole. If we accept them.

With choices for each distribution how much we are to settle in and build, or resist and rebel.

Jesus is present. His door of meeting is always open. Are we living in the lot He has given or seeking a different portion? Does our faith continue to grow and expand with new opportunities?

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 139: 10, 16

“Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

“Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.”

Reflection Territory: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     What boundary are you hesitating to cross literally or metaphorically? Or do you know that someone is preparing to come into your territory?

2.     Is there a conversation that needs to be brought into the open but you are afraid of the confrontation?

3.     How has the Lord prepared you already?

4.     Upon whose words are you ready to engage: your own or the Lord’s?

Share: What surprises have you discovered in a challenging territory before?

Territory: Word Ambassadors: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Joshua 2

“According to your words, so be it.” Joshua 2: 21

Have you ever been thrown into a new responsibility with almost no warning and no ‘to do’ list of guidelines? You have no idea what your reception will be but are expecting hostility, so you approach with caution. Or perhaps barrel on it taking a firm grip of authority.

Joshua sent two spies across the Jordan river into hostile territory with a brief mandate, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” That’s all they had. To them fell the responsibility to gather critical information. So they took lodgings in the house of a harlot, probably hoping to stay under the radar and unnoticed.

Instead, because she had heard, she immediately witnessed to them her belief in God and His intent to take the land. And boldly asked for refuge for herself, her family and their kin. “Swear to me by the Lord,” she said.

Perhaps the spies expected a possible confrontation with the men in the city, or perhaps captivity, but did they expect a woman, a harlot, to demand confirmation that God not only was who she believed He was, but were these two spies were confidant enough as well to trust His words for themselves and for this foreigner. Did they wonder if they could make that promise?

All three of them had to choose to accept whether they believed God’s words would bring hope and life or destruction. The decision required concrete action and not a generic maybe. And the spies gave their word in the middle of enemy territory. And Rahab accepted with trust. “So be it.”

With so little history they all agreed with confidence Rahab’s affirmation that. “The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.”

Lord, we have both Your spoken words and Your written words and too often we forget to stand on Your protection in enemy territory and/or forget to share that trust when in the midst of a conflict. Whether confronting a misunderstanding or facing down a monumental challenge, please help us to listen and act upon Your truth in faith.

Psalm of Worship: Psalm 122: 7-8

“Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.

For the sake of my relatives and friends, I will say, ‘Peace be within you’.”