Moses, Joshua, and Brett Farve

¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: ² "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.

I was having a conversation with a co-worker at lunch this week. I was sharing that I had recently listened to a message on Joshua 1 that was encouraging and challenging (You can hear it on iTunes. You will find it in podcasts under Telling the Truth, it is the Frontline Christianity series, General Marching orders message). Pete Briscoe was sharing that Joshua was receiving instructions from God. God says to Joshua, "Moses is dead, now you and all people cross the Jordan" Which in essence he was saying, "Joshua there is a huge leadership hole and guess who gets to lead? YOU!" Joshua took the challenge and said to the people, "We are going, get ready!"

As I was relaying this to my co-worker I couldn't come up with the words to explain the depth of despair that the Israelites might have been feeling with the loss of Moses, a man who had lead them out of slavery and interceded on their behalf time upon time upon time. As I was trying to come up with the words to express the kind of despair they may have been in to my co-worker, he came up with the words for me. He said, "It's kind of like the Packers losing Brett Farve."

...only in Wisconsin...but I suppose Jesus often told stories in the context of culture so people could understand a principle. It's quite a stretch to most of us, but in the context I guess, yeah, as losing Brett Farve is to a lot of Packer fans, so it was to the people of Israel to lose Moses.

(I admit I got a good laugh when my co-worker said this!)