Mourning and Dancing

The last chapter of Deuteronomy tells us the last chapter in the life of Moses.  After being shown the land of promise by the Lord who had brought him to the edge of it, the Word says, "Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord's command."  (Deuteronomy 34:5)  In both life and death Moses lived and died according to the command of the Lord.  And while it may seem like a strange way to bring the end of this man's story to a conclusion, it is a reminder that all of life is in the hands of God.  This is true of the beginning of our life in the womb and the end of it when the Creator's purposes have been done.    

After the death of their leader, the people mourned for thirty days.  Everything stopped.  The movement toward the land of  promise was halted as the people honored and remembered the one who was faithful to God and had led them from the land of slavery in Egypt.  And at the end of those thirty days, the Lord speaks again to Joshua, the one whom Moses had placed his hands as the leader of the people, saying, "My servant Moses is dead.  Now proceed to cross the Jordan..."  (Joshua 1:2)  As God spoke the obvious Word everyone knew, He also spoke a word saying that the time of mourning was done.  It was time to get on with what was His plan for the rest of their lives.  "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:  a time to be born, and a time to die....a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance..."  (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4)   

We have all mourned for those we love and if we live a few more days, we will mourn again for still another.  It is a part of the season of departure, but it is also a season that is to lead us into the season of the rest of the living that God has for us to do.  Never does God call us to dwell in what is behind us, but He is always leading us forward to embrace what is unfolding ahead of us.  Even as we must weep the bitter tears of mourning, so does He intend for us to laugh and dance once again.  All of it, the mourning and the dancing, is a part of His plan.