Our Daily Bread: Voices of FaithSample

Stones Can Speak

Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan. -Joshua 4:9

Stones not only speak; stones tell stories. Of wind and storm and pain. Even water cannot silence stones buried deep below.

Folk said it didn’t happen. No slave ship could have arrived stateside in 1860! The international slave trade ended in 1808. But living stones cannot be silenced, not even by the azure deep.

They found the Clotilda, buried in the delta not far from Mobile, the last slave ship to bring Africans to America. One hundred and ten souls hidden in the ship’s hull arrived in Alabama, but the schooner, the hard evidence of their illegal capture, was burned and scuttled to hide the crime.

And it seemed the slaves’ survival, endurance, and creation of a city called Africatown would remain just a story. But like the underwater stones in the Jordan River of generations earlier, these living stones tell the story of determination and faith.

When the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground, they set up a memorial of twelve stones on the shore. Joshua also set up a memorial of twelve stones, but these he placed under the water, where the priests’ feet stood when the waters stopped flowing so that the Israelites could cross over (Joshua 3–4).

These stones tell the miracle of faith, the faith to remain standing in the water while others cross over. Now we are the memorial—living stones, standing, still speaking, that others may cross over.

Georgia A. Hill

What’s your crossing-over story? How will you stand up and speak your faith to help someone else cross over to Jesus?

Lord, You reign in all the earth! Please lift me, Lord, from my deep dark places. Thank You for giving this living stone a story to tell. In Jesus’ name, amen.