Look Inside the Boundary Lines

I'm sure I am not the only one who played the mysterious game without a name in elementary school where the girls chased the boys and the boys chased the girls and sometimes one or the other got caught and "taken to jail," which -- at least for us -- was a "fort" we'd built in the woods on school property. The jailed inhabitant was kept in place until he or she escaped or was freed, and certain destructive ramifications occurred to said forts in the process.

The boys tore down the girls' fort every day at recess, and in retaliation, the girls' tore down the boys' fort. Loyalties ran strong in our class: If the girls saw an impending disaster to any other girl, we all rallied around that girl to keep her "safe." The boys, similarly, declared war on any girl who threatened any boy. 

We had quite a little military conquest happening on our school playground. 

Side note: In a completely unbiased statement, the girls' forts were better than the boys' forts, because we had a sitting room (open space among trees) with chairs (cut logs standing on end) and traps (a dip in the ground covered over with leaves) for pesky boys who wandered too close with a mind bent on fort destruction.

This morning, Joshua 19 covered the last apportionments of land among the tribes still left: Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan, plus a city for Joshua. Caleb had gotten first pick of the land, and he'd taken Hebron in the land of Judah -- Joshua waits till the end, and he takes a town called Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim. Between these two spies who honored God and didn't fear the enemy because God was with them -- the entire nation of Israel settled their land.

In Joshua 19:9, it says: "The inheritance of the Simeonites was taken from the share of Judah, because Judah's portion was more than they needed. So the Simeonites received their inheritance within the territory of Judah."

Since the geographical markers of territory are mostly unfamiliar town names and land markings, I've been thankful for my maps at the back of my Bible to help me keep track of who settles where. When I was looking at that map the other day, I thought it was really, really interesting to glance at the land of Judah, where -- in almost the exact center of the shaded territory -- is a circle where the land of Simeon is designated.

Simeon is the doughnut hole in Judah's territory. 

I wondered how it came about that Judah completely surrounded the tribe of Simeon, and here in Joshua 19:9, I get a glimpse: "Because Judah's portion was more than they needed."

That doesn't necessarily answer my doughnut hole question. For instance, couldn't Judah have broken off half the land and given the other half to Simeon? I'm sure the apportionment had to do with town layout and what made sense as far as who lived in which towns. But whatever the case, I did think how awesome it was for Simeon.

NONE of the other tribes had the doughnut hole factor in their lands; each of them had at least two, often more, tribes on their borders, and some of them had "outside" borders, enemy territory to protect, etc.

Simeon had Judah. That was it. And barring a feud with brother Judah, they got a pretty good deal. They had protection from foreign enemies. The main diplomacy they had to maintain was their relationship with Judah, and that was it. They had -- for lack of a better term -- a firewall set up around them for safety's sake.

As I was thinking about this, I turned to Psalm 16:5-6: "Lord, You have assigned me my portion and my cup; You have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance."

Simeon's boundary lines had fallen in very pleasant places. Safe, secure, settled in the center of the protection of a big brother (I know that of Jacob's sons, Judah was younger than Simeon... but Judah's land allotment was larger than Simeon's). If the Simeonites had to travel anywhere, it was through Judah's territory. Judah watched the comings and the goings of the Simeonites.

Today, it's simple, really. Our apportionment, our allotment, falls within the firewall of the Holy Spirit. I was just reading about this today in David Jeremiah's Turning Point. He discusses the various kinds of armor we find in the Scripture -- for instance, Goliath wore bronze armor and carried a spear with an iron head. Contrast this with the armor Paul brings up in Ephesians 6: a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, fitted shoes that come with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul reminds the church: "The weapons we fight with are not weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds."

The Lord surrounds us. "I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken" (Psalm 16:8). "The Lord is your shade at your right hand... The Lord will keep you from all harm; the Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore" (Psalm 121:5, 7-8). "But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard" (Isaiah 52:12).

David wrote many of the Psalms, and his fraught life pre-kingship is well-documented. It wasn't like he was safe and secure, right? Saul continually and habitually hunted him in order to kill him, and during that time, David wrote about the Lord; he wrote praise and passion to the God Who fought for Him and protected Him. 

But David was settled exactly in the center of God's will, hiding in -- wait for it -- the doughnut hole of His plan. He was secure because, and only because, of the Lord's protection. His boundary that was his portion and his cup, his boundary that included such pleasant places, his boundary that was a delightful inheritance -- referred only to the fact that the Lord surrounded Him.

I thought that was pretty amazing. I wrote a little bit about "holy boundaries" yesterday. The thing is, somehow we often trick ourselves into thinking that the grass is greener on the other side of those boundaries, that the holy boundaries the Lord sets up for us are a hindrance. 

Let's look inside the boundary lines. What a wonderful place! Whatever our life circumstances -- if the Lord sets up boundaries around us -- we have a delightful inheritance, simply because He surrounds us. Nothing happens to us that God doesn't check first. He "watches over our comings and goings, both now and forevermore."