The Circle That Kept Spinning

Do you know what it feels like to break the same thing twice? To say "never again," and then do the very thing all over again? There is an ache in that. A stuck feeling. Like spinning on a wheel you cannot climb off of.

This is the story of a whole nation that felt it.

God had brought his people into a good land. A land of figs and honey and rest. And the old ones who remembered, the grandmas and grandpas who had watched God split a sea and shake down a wall, they loved him with their whole hearts.

But then they grew old. And they died. And a new little crowd grew up after them who had never seen the sea or the wall. And slowly, slowly, they forgot.

They forgot the God who had carried them. They even forgot the great stone under the oak tree, the one that had listened while they promised, "We will serve the Lord!" Old Joshua had warned them that their hearts were wanderers. He was right.

So they wandered off to little gods of wood and stone. Gods that could not hear. Gods that could not love them back. And without God close, the land turned hard and frightening, and enemies pressed in, and the people were afraid.

And in their fear, they finally cried out. "God! Help us! We're sorry! We're stuck!"

And God heard them. He always heard them. His heart was moved for them, the way your heart moves when someone you love is hurting. So he sent a rescuer, a brave helper called a judge, to lift them out and set them safe again.

Safe and glad and home.

For a little while.

Because then the rescuer grew old. And died. And the people forgot again. And wandered again. And grew afraid again. And cried out again. And God, oh, kind God, rescued them again.

Round and round. Sin, and sorrow, and crying out, and rescue. Then forgetting. Then all of it once more.

A circle that kept spinning.

Those were the long years of the judges, rescuer after rescuer, and you will meet some of them soon. One was even a brave mother with a song.

Maybe you know that circle in your own small heart. The same temper. The same little lie. The same "I'll never do it again" that you did again. It can make you tired. It can make you feel like no one could ever fix you for good.

Every rescuer God sent was a good gift. And every one of them grew old and went away, and the spinning started over. Each one was strong enough to help for a little while. Not one of them was strong enough to stop the wheel.

So God was already planning something. Someone. A Rescuer who would not grow old and leave. A Rescuer who would climb down into the deepest, most stuck place we have, all the way down to the bottom of it, and break the wheel from the inside, so it could never spin us round again.

His people did not know his name yet, but God knew it, and God was already making the road that would bring him. When he came, he would not lift them out for just a little while.

He would carry them home for good, every last one of them, all the way through the door.