"When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”
Joshua 4:1-3
building altars stone by stone
"So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 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.”
Joshua 4:4-7
There are far too many days that I have sight but don't see...I stumble forward existing but not living...I take but don't give thanks...I experience but don't wonder about the Author... This altar is erected for His glory.
To show all who have eyes to see that He is God. He is the Creator and Author of life and His plans for us are good.
To remind us that trials and tribulations will come, rivers must be crossed, but He will be there with us in the crossing.
The act of building an altar is one of obedience. The heaviness of each stone recalls the heaviness of our burdens. We finally release the weight and what manifests is a purely organic, unhewn thing of beauty, liquid in its form, unfettered by our human desire to control everything. A memorial to our weakness, our lacking and to the God Who Saves.
Lest we forget why we walk this earth...
"So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the LORD had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day." Joshua 4:8-9
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