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Bible Text: Joshua 5:13-6:20
Have you ever been up against a situation in your life that looks completely impossible? Maybe you don’t have health insurance and your child’s teeth need a lot of work on them and you are thinking, “how am I ever going to pay this bill”? Or maybe you’ve been suffocating under your addictions too long and you feel like you don’t have a single friend left in this world. Maybe your marriage has been rocked by infidelity or is slowly dying from years of lack of intentional attention. Or you think everyone at school is talking about you and you can barely get out of bed to face the day. Not one more day with all those side eyed glances and abruptly shortened conversations as you walk by.
In the book of Joshua, we see a battle both spiritual and physical. Joshua has been told to go and take over Jericho which is a highly fortified and seemingly impenetrable city. He looks up a the towering, solid walls and thinks, “yeah right. Like as if this is going to happen.” And he wants to give up. He doesn’t want to face the day. He feels like God has lead him in the wrong direction and he is alone. He feels discouraged and weak from the long journey they had just been on. He feels the threads of doubt coming from his troops and within himself. He’s even questioning God’s angel who is standing in front of him, dressed for battle. A literal warrior angel, and he’s like “who’s side are you on?”.
But God’s on God’s side. God is concerned with His own plan for our lives. He’s concerned with us knowing that too, over and over He reminds us that He is with us, including within this story of Joshua. He’s with us in our difficulties, but the plan for our lives and the solutions to our problems may not look like what we expect. Certainly Joshua expected more of a battle plan than a week long walk-a-thon around the fortress, carrying a golden box and yelling at the top of their lungs all the live long day.
While God’s predestined solutions may not be how we expect, we can trust that they are for our good. That they are there to teach us something. That we will have victory over our enemies either in this life or the next. That we are never, ever alone, and that He always makes a way. We can count on Him and we can trust Him, always.
For additional content, check out the latest episode of The Clearer Thinking Podcast.
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