Stones to Remember

Joshua 4:5b-7 Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.

     Our nation's capitol has some beautiful monuments, buildings made to help us remember our history. We place plaques on walls with names on them to remember the people who were foundational to the building of the buildings. We carve quotes into the stone. We erect statues of important people. We dedicate land, assigning people's names to it. We do all these things, and many more, to help future generations remember that past.
     Remembering the past, both the good and the evil is important. And we have to find ways of passing along the lessons learned from the past to future generations.
     Joshua, the new leader of the people of Israel, was told when they were about to cross the Jordan River to enter the Promised Land to pick twelve men to pick up twelve stones from the riverbed right where the priests stood when the LORD stopped the Jordan River's flow. There were to each pick up a stone that would later be piled up to help the twelve tribes remember this miracle.
     This pile of stones would prompt a "Daddy, why" question in future generations. Kids would see the pile of rocks and ask "Daddy, why is there a pile of rocks here?" This would give the parents the opportunity to answer the question by telling the story of deliverance from Egypt and their entry into the Promised Land.
     We seem many memorial stone piles in Scripture, many opportunities to tell the history of our Great God. How do we tell our 'next generations' about our Great God? How do we share what the LORD has done for us in our lives? Do we take time to do this? Do we have "Daddy, why?" memorials in our lives to trigger the questions?
     Maybe it is time we stacked some stones to remember what the LORD has done.