Stepping into the river

Going back to Japan feels a little bit like what these guys were asked to do:

When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Chest of God, Master of all the earth, touch the Jordan’s water, the flow of water will be stopped—the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap.

And that’s what happened. The people left their tents to cross the Jordan, led by the priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant. When the priests got to the Jordan and their feet touched the water at the edge (the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest), the flow of water stopped. It piled up in a heap—a long way off—at Adam, which is near Zarethan. The river went dry all the way down to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea). And the people crossed, facing Jericho.

And there they stood; those priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground. Finally the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one wet foot (Joshua 3:13-17, The Message).

"Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you'" (Joshua 3:5, NIV).

Indeed, if they hadn't trusted God and refused to put their feet in the water, they never would have seen the amazing things that God had in store. And this was just the beginning, God took them into the land he'd promised and did amazing things on their behalf in defeating the residents of the area in order to give Israel their own land.

I'm led to believe that the Jordan has steep banks, so by committing to put their feet in the water they were basically throwing themselves into the whole flooded river.

You might wonder how this applies to me? Well I'm not rushing to get back to Japan. I'm happy enough when I'm there, but Australia ultimately has my affection and it's hard to leave. However, I'm doing what I'm called to do and that is hop on that aeroplane. The previous two times we've done this after a year in Australia have also been hard, but the Lord has been gracious in giving me a great emotional sense of "you're in the right place", but not until we arrive in Japan. 

So often I think we confuse good emotions with the right thing to do. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't come with matching emotions, not until later. Sometimes it is just the hard thing to do.

I don't know if that communicates what I'm thinking or not. We have conflict with children going in the background here and I'm not 100% healthy and my brain is a little muddled, but I did want to get my thoughts out there as something that's been on my mind for a few weeks now.