Deep Roots in Land Strike Force

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From the perspective of my emotional grid, the most heinous sin Israel/Judah committed was father's sacrificing their own children to Chemosh and Molech in a slow death, in order to (supposedly) advance the father's career.

Not exactly my vision of what fathers or children were designed to do/be.

Heinous is not a strong enough word.

And God certainly had some harsh things to say about that practice.

BUT, that is not why He kicked them out of the land.

He kicked them out of the land for not honoring the Year of Jubilee which was designed to give the land rest AND to restore families' connection to the ancestral lands, AND to recapitalize economically devastated families, so legacy could be rebuilt – on the ancestral lands.

In Joshua's day, God had the land surveyed, then HE decided where each Tribe would live. From there, the clans and families were allocated land (we don't know how) and from that time on, God wanted permanence in the relationship between THAT land and families.

Why did it matter so much to God, that the families who failed economically and had to declare bankruptcy and sell their land to the one percenters in the community, should be rewarded with the restoration of their own specific family land – not liquid asset reparations – as a means of their being recapitalized?

What happened to the maxim that whatever behavior we reward, we get more of? Why did God punish the wealthy by taking away the land they had gained, with absolutely no compensation, and give it to the descendants of economic failures, who may or may not have learned anything about sound money management during their time apart from the land?

There was NO screening at all for integrity, for financial good judgment, for spirituality, for social skills. Just a mandatory return of a piece of land, to the family who first owned it in Joshua's day, 500 years before.

Predictably, the one percenters gamed the system and the generational family/land connection got broken and for THAT crime, God took the nations into exile.

Wowzer.

AND, just to be absolutely sure that this sin was covered by the Messiah, the Son of God was born into a poor, DISPLACED family line. Jesus spent most of His ministry years couch surfing, not putting down roots, and He for sure did not return to the ancestral land in Bethlehem to establish a legacy on the ancestral land, which He grandly bought back from the current owner.

What happens to a family, when they are deeply rooted in an ancestral piece of land?

Dunno.

But I do know what happens when God's covenant people spit on His family/land/legacy plan. It is an ugly phrase beginning with B___ and ending with 70.

America was birthed by a smattering of visionaries (William Penn, John Winthrop), a boat load of one percenters (most of whom stayed in the Old Country but sent their minions to do asset extraction), and a TRAIN LOAD of runners. Rootedness on land is not even an idea for many Americans!

From farm, to business, to church to social media – Have Issues? Will use the Geographic Cure! The younger generation these days changes jobs as blithely as they unfriend someone on social media.

What does that habit of running, running, running, running (and self-medicating so we can run emotionally when we can't run geographically) do to a nation? Or a person?

Dunno.

Can't be good.

But God's arm is not short. In the midst of a nation of peripatetic escape artists, God has a remnant of people who have been rooted and grounded in generational land – for such a time as this.

And they have SOMETHING I don't have, and the majority of the Tribe doesn't have. It is so foreign to our American culture, I don't even have language for "it."

But I would love to try to leverage "it" for the Kingdom.

If God has graced you with that rare treasure, and you would like to walk with us through the fog, to try to language "it" and leverage "it" for the Blessing Your Heart Part 1 seminar, I would love to have you on this strike force

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