Joshua 15:42-47: a reflection

42Libnah, Ether, Ashan, 43Iphtah, Ashnah, Nezib, 44Keilah, Achzib, and Mareshah; nine cities with their villages. 45Ekron, with its towns and its villages; 46from Ekron even to the sea, all that were by the side of Ashdod, with their villages. 47Ashdod, its towns and its villages; Gaza, its towns and its villages; to the brook of Egypt, and the great sea with its coastline.

At first glance this is just a list of towns, names most of us cannot place on a map: Libnah, Ether, Ashan, Keilah, Ekron, Ashdod, Gaza. It reads like the fine print of a deed. But that is what it is, a deed, God parceling out real ground to real families, town by named town.

Notice that God does not deal in vague blessings. He does not give Judah some land in the south in general; he gives Libnah, Nezib, Mareshah, each a specific place where specific people would build homes and raise children. The God who made you works the same way. His care for you is not a general goodwill toward humanity; it is particular, attached to the actual details of your actual life, the streets you live on, the people whose names you know.

And there is a shadow here too. Some of these towns, Ekron and Ashdod and Gaza, Judah was given on paper but never fully held; they stayed in other hands. The inheritance was granted in full and possessed in part, and the gap between the two is a place many of us live. What has God promised you that you have not yet taken hold of? Today, receive the particular ground he has given, and ask him for grace to possess what is still only yours in promise.

Lord, you give real ground to real people, and you know the particulars of my life. Help me receive what you have given and take hold of what is still only mine in promise.