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…isn’t always easy.  There are times and circumstances that we face which when right and wrong are more like shades of gray than they are black and white.  There are those moments when a choice presents itself when both (or all!) options seem more than ‘okay;’ times when we have to decide about jobs, health procedures, organizational strategy, whether to stay or go in any number of things, or the best course of action for a loved one and their future… and the details, options, and consequences are anything but simple.

In Joshua 9 & 10, there are principles demonstrated to the reader about how to handle those times when we don’t know what the ‘right thing to do’ is.  The people of Israel are in the midst of a progressive military campaign as they work to conquer & claim land promised in generations past.  They have faced and overcome many obstacles; individuals have risked their own lives and families for the sake of a greater cause; all the while God has shown he alone is the Leader, Provider, and Conqueror.

Word comes to these same people that an army unlike anything they had faced thus far had amassed… and is heading directly toward their position.  Israel’s battle tacticians and warrior-leader, Joshua, begin planning strategy, knowing there are many battles which still lie ahead… and that if they can’t deal with the obstacle heading their way, all will be lost.

In this midst of this, a band of tired, road-weary, seemingly desperate travelers comes their way seeking a treaty of peace.  And the Joshua, the Israelites, (and us, too!) learn some hard lessons in doing the right thing.  Over the next few Joshua posts, we’ll discover what some of those lessons are.

The Gimmies

October 6, 2009 — Leave a comment
Greed<Image courtesy of bejealousofme>

Christmas is coming.

Now, we may not be very far into autumn, Halloween is still almost a month away, and Thanksgiving is a distant thought for those of us here in the US.  But reminders are everywhere that Christmas is coming and retailers are working hard to instill a bad case of the gimmies in every consumer.  It’s a disease that strikes young and old alike, when raw consumerism and selfishness reign, and though self-restraint may keep us from actually verbalizing, “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie…” the sentiment can still be found in many.

But The Gimmies aren’t something unique to the Christmas spending season or retail marketing.  Somewhere deep within each of us is the desire to grab a hold of the stuff that isn’t ours but we think we deserve.

In Joshua 7, Achan did exactly this.  He grabbed a hold of some of the very things God said were only God’s, and, as shared in the last Joshua post, the result was disastrous for the people of Israel.  Achan held onto something that wasn’t his and the consequences were dire.  His actions should cause each of us to ask if we aren’t holding onto things not ours… things even greater than the shiny new _______ (you fill in the blank) we desire when flipping through the Sunday ads.

Are we attempting to possess something that isn’t really ours?  Do we recognize that even ‘our’ job is simply God’s chosen vehicle for his provision in our lives and that it isn’t really ours at all?  That our job isn’t ours to squander or take advantage of; it isn’t ours to do with as we please… because it simply isn’t ours?

What about ‘our’ church?  We often try to make church what WE want… either in the name of some sacrosanct tradition, because of ‘righteous indignation,’ or in the name of ‘reaching the lost at any cost’ when, at the core of it all we’re just fighting for personal preference and comfort… what we want when we want how we want.  And yet, Scripture is clear that the Chruch is Christ’s body over which he is the Head… and as the Sovereign King, His design and desire are all that matter.

Or how about family?  Parents (I’m treading lightly here because I recognize I’m not a parent) sometimes forget that ‘their’ children are really lives which belong to God and the parent is given brief stewardship over.  Spouses are called to love, respect, protect, and submit to one another not because they belong to each other but because God has, in a sovereign but loving manner, given husbands to their wives and vice-versa.

We all too often commit the sin of Achan, taking the things that are devoted to God and trying to claim them as our own.  To those of us in Christ, our call is one to a life of continued, consistent obedience, even in those areas of life which may seem too big/special/scary to trust to God.  But they (and we) are His, and so is the victory we seek.

Victory: Simple

September 29, 2009 — Leave a comment
72934671_d95e4b1b5c<image courtesy of graylight>

Over the course of the last few Joshua posts, some ideas have been shared about where victory for the Israelites wasn’t found as they fought in the somewhat well-known battle for Jericho and their less familiar defeat at Ai.  As counterintuitive as it may seem, we discovered that the key to their victory wasn’t in a flashy move of God, attempting to conquer, or self-confident.

The key to their victory—and the key for us to find victory and freedom in what we face—is simple:

Joshua 7:10-13 (TNIV)—

10 The LORD said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? 11 Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. 12 That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

13 “Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: There are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.

In seeking God for understanding about the source of their defeat, the Israelites discovered the source of their victory: Obedience.  Their victory wasn’t theirs at all but came about as a direct result of their obedience to God’s direction.

The instructions to Israel about how to fight the battle for Jericho had been clear: march around the city day after day (even though it probably looked and felt ridiculous) and then when the city was invaded the people were to dedicate certain objects to God.  The source of Israel’s defeat at Ai was their  disobedience at Jericho: they had only followed PART of the instructions.  Even ‘worse,’ only part of Israel followed part of the instructions—for the most part, everyone seems to have very carefully followed God’s direction and acted within the parameters which had been set for them.

But there was one man who didn’t.  One.  A man named Achan took hold of some the very things God said belonged only to Him and claimed ownership of them for himself.  As a result all of Israel was defeated; one man’s disobedience meant the suffering of an entire people.

Our personal disobedience never effects only us.  Our personal sin is never personal.  Our individual issues reach far beyond our personal experience.  This is one reason the Church is called to judge herself and we are reminded of our existence as a single Body not a group of individual people.

Victory for us, our churches, our families, our communities is found in our  obedience to the Lordship of God’s Spirit.  This may be simple, but it is not easy—the incredible thing is that through Jesus Christ, we have access to the desire to obey and through Christ we have the ability to find obedience (and, therefore, victory).

57562757_a7e573fb78<image courtesy of unapistim>

In our final discussion of what victory isn’t based on chapters 6 & 7 of Joshua, we find the Israelites engaged in a post-Jericho battle with the people of a little town called Ai:

Joshua 7

2 Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and spy out the region.” So the men went up and spied out Ai.

3 When they returned to Joshua, they said, “Not all the army will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there.” 4 So about three thousand went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai, 5 who killed about thirty-six of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water.

Israel had experienced victory in the midst of impossible odds; but in the face of a seemingly insignificant enemy at an insignificant town they were soundly defeated.  The Israelites were confident.  Brash.  Full of themselves.  But they didn’t look at the obstacle before them with spiritual eyes, and it cost them.  Huge.  There were problems within their own camp that had to be dealt with, but those issues were indiscernible to eyes which were focused simply on the physical realities of battle conquest.

True to form, the Scripture here teaches us something:

Those who serve as our superiors, mentors, trainers, and trusted advisors often seem to indicate that the more confident we are, the more successful we will be.  I definitely think there is some truth to that, but we run the risk of talking ourselves into frenzied activity where we forget we are wholly dependent on God, and that, as great as we think we are, when we become full of ourselves, we destine ourselves for failure.

The battles we’re fighting and obstacles we find ourselves facing must be viewed through spiritual eyes (we forget that the spiritual is far more real than we may be tempted to believe).

The first time I ever went snorkeling, I was amazed to discover a whole different world— just as real as what I had been experiencing on land— thriving under the surface of the water.  Sometimes, even from the land there were some indications of this ‘other’ world: kelp leaves discernable at the surface, tide pools evidencing various treasures, and ‘flying fish’ jumping from the water.  But when we peered under the water, with masks properly secured, a new understanding of ‘ocean life’ came to be mine.  For someone from the desert of Arizona, ‘ocean life’ had always been more an untested theory than a real concept until I experienced it firsthand.

For those of us living in the desert of this present world, the reality of the spiritual may be lost on us because it is sometimes seen only in brief, somewhat confusing glimpses.  But when we view what is occurring with spiritual eyes, we are amazed at what seems to be a whole other world full of vibrant reality.

We must view the battles we are fighting with spiritual eyes, no longer focused only on the obvious or our personal confidence.  We must see our battles as ones with spiritual consequences and even spiritual roots; as the kind of fights which can only be truly won if we are on the side of God, full of his Spirit and transformed by his Word.  Walking by faith rather than what we see isn’t always easy, but it’s particularly important that we battle by faith rather than our confidence in what is seen.

pinkyAndBrain_traced

In discussing a couple of specific battles found in the book of Joshua, as God leads his people into the land promised to their ancestors, we’re focusing on where victory wasn’t found for the people as they began to move.  We’ve already watched as they were prepared for these battles by some less-than-conventional means (like here, for example).  And as we’ve watched the battle of Jericho unfold in Joshua 6, we’ve also seen that victory wasn’t found in the miraculous event of the city’s fortified walls collapsing.

Neither was victory found in conquest.

Now, you may find yourself thinking, “Isn’t that what they DID?  Didn’t the Israelites conquer Jericho by crushing the military protecting the city and destroying the town?”

Not necessarily.

Joshua 6

15 On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. 16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city! 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury.”

The proof of conquest for the people of Joshua’s day was walking away with the possessions of the conquered people; in many ways, the aim of conquest was to assimilate the good and powerful aspects of a civilization into your own.  The conquering people would proudly display the valuable, often sacred artifacts of the conquered party as a badge of honor and evidence of the victorious army’s great strength.  By destroying everything about the town and preserving precious metals in the Temple treasury, the Israelites are giving up evidence of their conquest and, thus, of their superiority.

In my understanding, God is again calling his people to be humble: by having the Israelites operate in this way, they would be unable to brag of what they had done.  It’s as if God is again reminding them that they were not the ones responsible for the victory enjoyed.

I wonder how many times we have wanted some area in my life ‘conquered’ so that we would be able to build up our own name.  Admittedly, I have not always faced the difficulties and obstacles in my life with humility, but hoped to overcome them so others would see how great Jeremiah Gómez really is.

How often have we wanted to win the next battle at work and climb the corporate ladder so others will finally see how smart we are and how much work we do?  To overcome family issues so others will recognize how much of a ‘good’ spouse, parent, sibling, or child we really are?  Or to find financial freedom so we can have all the stuff that better demonstrates our success?

The Israelites, it seems, needed to learn and practice humility in the face of obstacles.  It’s a tough lesson that we need, too, but it’s one that will bring us to a place of greater confidence in the God Who Never Fails and less in our own design or desire.