As I think about memorials of what God has done, so far in Joshua there are 3:

• A pile of selected stones to memorialize the crossing of the Jordan
• A pile of rocks marking the stoning of Achan
• Another pile of rocks marking the defeat of the king of Ai

In other words, there’s nothing intrinsically valuable about the memorial itself – it’s what it reminds us of.

Specifically, we need to remember God’s actions, not just his ideas. Ours is not a religion we follow with ordinances and “love your neighbor” only. It’s a relationship with the God who acts. That makes PRAYER important! Prayer ties God’s actions into the present. We ought not to just study what he did in the past. Here are some possible personal memorials:

• We ordered an elliptical exercise machine last week, which was to be delivered in a 100-pound box on Wednesday. The challenge was that we were leaving for Denver at 2:30p. Maybe they leave it at the front door, and I have to haul it downstairs. Or they leave it by the service door in plain sight of possible thieves. I prayed and asked the Lord to deliver the elliptical before we left. The guys came just before noon! Now, every time I see the elliptical, I can choose to remember how God answered prayer and delivered it on time. The elliptical is a memorial.
• In 2015 we committed to paying off our house in three years. By God’s grace, including some small windfalls, we did. Our paid-off house is a memorial to God’s provision.
• Our purchase of a 2019 Subaru Ascent in late August 2022, was the culmination of a chain of events starting with June’s discomfort on a long road trip. Then we saw an Ascent in the parking lot of the hotel we were staying at for a Navigator conference. Our local Subaru dealer had just such an Ascent on hand (at a time when used cars were hard to come by). The Ascent is a memorial to God’s looking out for us and meeting our needs abundantly.
• An article in the Wall Street Journal resulted in hand-made deck furniture, some of which is on the deck because of a miracle answer to prayer: a crew at a neighbor’s with a giant hand truck. So the deck furniture is a memorial to God’s care in the little things.

Maybe that’s one secret to a memorial: infusing the ordinary with meaning. Is that just a pile of rocks? No, it’s where Achan died for his sin. Is that just an empty hill? No, it’s where the great city of Ai used to be before God helped us destroy it. What about those 12 large stones? Oh, that’s where God parted the waters of the Jordan River. Is that your new elliptical? Yes, a memorial to a God who acts…as is the house, the car, and the deck furniture.

The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month. They set up camp at The Gilgal (The Circle) to the east of Jericho. Joshua erected a monument at The Gilgal, using the twelve stones that they had taken from the Jordan. And then he told the People of Israel, “In the days to come, when your children ask their fathers, ‘What are these stones doing here?’ tell your children this: ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ “Yes, GOD, your God, dried up the Jordan’s waters for you until you had crossed, just as GOD, your God, did at the Red Sea, which had dried up before us until we had crossed. This was so that everybody on earth would recognize how strong GOD’s rescuing hand is and so that you would hold GOD in solemn reverence always.” (Joshua 4.19 – 24, MSG)