As Kathleen and I watch our two married sons and their lovely wives consider future pathways, we are struck anew by God’s providence by which he is directing their steps in unpredictable, gracious, and remarkable ways. We – and they – are keenly aware that their “small” stories are integrally connected to God’s BIG story, and that God has seen fit throughout human history to compose his big story through the millions of small stories in which individuals and families and places and communities play their appointed roles. Most of the situations and episodes of those stories are what we would call ordinary rather than extraordinary: people living their daily lives, making mostly little decisions, learning, failing and succeeding, moving, changing jobs, getting married, having children, living in neighborhoods, participating in local churches, and on and on. And yet, in the mostly mundane details of life, God is fulfilling his cosmic purpose to bring all things into perfect unity under one Head, through the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the early chapters of the book of Joshua, we read of the gathering of God’s people as they prepare to enter the Promised Land. Click to continue »