In Joshua 5:13-14 it reads, “Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ ‘Neither,’ he replied, ‘but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, ‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?’”
“Are you for us or for our enemies?” How often do we ask this very question? God are you going to help me in my situation? Are you going to defend me against my difficult circumstances…against difficult people?
The man, who is not really a man, replies: Neither.
God says, I don’t take your side. I’m asking you to take my side. In the turmoil, we ask God if he is for us our against us. But God says neither. “I’m not your secret weapon—your ace card, your magic fairy dust. I have a plan that will work. If you want to be part of that winning plan, it is your choice. But whether you get everything that you want out of this life, or whether all of your problems and troubles are resolved before heaven is in most cases irrelevant.
What God instructed Joshua to do seemed ludicrous. He didn’t instruct the Israelites to rally and attack; to devise a better strategy; to concoct a display of power that would show the world the true power of God. They didn’t do any of that. And if they would have, they would have trampled on God’s plan. God said, “I have a better plan. It will not make sense, but I just need you to walk around the walls of Jericho for a week. It’s my plan, and my plans only make sense after you see their fulfillment.
So which do you choose?
In faith,
Roy
