Children in Sunday schools across the land hear early and often about the Exodus.  They hear about the miraculous parting of the Red Sea.  They aren’t alone.

The people east of the Jordan River had also heard rumors of the powerful God leading the nation of Israel, and they were terrified.  What would such a God do to them?

Then, the Lord caused the waters of the Jordan River — in flood stage in spring — to pile up at one end, leaving a riverbed for the people to cross.  This picture of the Jordan River in the springtime shows a fairly turbulent waterway.  Clearly, the Jordan was not something they could have just leaped over in a bound or two.

Rushing water is powerful.  I well remember the images of Katrina when rising floodwaters pushed houses off their foundations and eroded anything and everything in the way.

Imagine the power behind the “piling up” of the waters of the Jordan!

The people living in the land just east of the Jordan must have been completely terrified.  Not only were these invaders coming into their land, but they were coming in a bold, supernatural manner.

And then there’s the whole thing about Rahab and how the spies Joshua sent stayed at her house for the night.

I got to wondering…why in the world did they go to the home of a prostitute?  Did they not know who she was?  Or did they go precisely because of who she was?  A prostitute would likely be quite knowledgeable about the men of a certain town.  She’d know their strengths and weaknesses.

Or maybe they were looking for a good time?  The Bible doesn’t say, and it doesn’t condemn them for visiting her house.  In fact, because she hid them from the local soldiers, they made a pact with her to save not just her life, but also the lives of her family members staying inside her house.  They made her home — once a den of sin — into a place of refuge for her family.

Isn’t that just like the Lord, using people in unexpected ways?

His creative use of people and circumstances display His glory every bit as much as the supernatural crossing of the Jordan on dry ground: He is not to be deterred from his purposes, whether they be keeping his people safe and dry or obtaining information about the Promised Land.  His glory, and His reputation, preceded him then and precedes him now in every circumstance…even in those happening to you and me, right now.

He is ABLE to move mountains.  He is ABLE to stop streams in their tracks.  He is ABLE to heal us of every disease and prevent their spread.  he is ABLE to awaken in our hearts a desire to know Him more.  He is ABLE to cause a sinner to repent, to call that sinner to himself.  He is ABLE to adopt us into His family, to use us and mold us and refine us into the people he created us to be.  He is ABLE to give us strength when our well is dry, water when our throats are parched, and peace when our world is falling around us.  When anxiety grips us, He is ABLE to take it upon himself.  If we take a moment to look around us, we’ll see miracles like these displaying his glory even today.