
Part 1: Obedience | Part 2: Plan
God has assured Joshua that he has promised Israel the Land and that his plans will be accomplished. But there is in all of us this thread of fear, of doubt. “There’s a plan, but …”
Mike Tyson, former world heavyweight boxing champion, famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Yes, God has a plan, and he wants the best for us. But is he now just standing on the dock, smiling at and waving to Joshua as Israel sails off into unknown seas?
I speak as a fool.
The Lord has more to say before he sends Joshua and his men into combat:
No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you (Jos 1.5).
God is not Pollyanna; there will be hard times. There will be those who “stand before” the people of Israel. And Joshua knows as well as anyone what they will be like; he surveyed the Land with eleven other men and saw, as they did, that
the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan (Nu 13.28-29).
These words come, of course, from the 10-spy majority, who counseled not even trying. But Joshua (and Caleb) had disagreed, because they believed God’s promises. And now God gives this believer added incentives to obey.
First, they’re going to win.
Nobody will be able to defeat them militarily.
And second—and this is key—God will be with them. He’ll be right there.
Now, I find that interesting. God obviously doesn’t need to “be right there” in order to see and know what’s going on. He doesn’t need to “be right there” to act on Israel’s behalf. He can do all his holy will from his holy hill, from the high and holy place (Is 57.15) where he dwells. Distance is no obstacle to him.
But the transcendent God is also immanent—“with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Is 57.15 again)—because he can be, and because he wants to be. He loves us, and he’s not inclined to engage in bicoastal relationships. If I may say this reverently, he wants to be close; he wants to snuggle.
I think there’s another reason that God makes this promise to his people at this transition point: he knows that they are bolstered, strengthened, by the assurance that he is with them.
Have you ever seen a little child’s face light up when he sees his parents in the audience at the elementary school program? He smiles, and he may even wave. All the decorum flees; he’s just delighted that Mom and Dad are there.
We don’t stay children, but we all have that spirit within us. We feel better when our loved ones make their presence known. And we are similarly bolstered by knowing that God brings his omnipotence to our struggles.
God’s words to Joshua don’t stop there; he notes further that he has proved himself faithful in the past (“as I was with Moses”). We’re also bolstered by having experienced this sort of thing before. As Paul notes (my paraphrase), “Trials bring endurance, and endurance brings experience [of success], and experience brings confidence [in future trials]” (Ro 5.3-4).
He will not “leave” us. The Hebrew word speaks of loosening your grip and letting something fall—like what I do when I fall asleep on the couch while holding the remote.
God doesn’t do that, and he won’t. He’s awake, and he’s present, though he doesn’t really need to be in order to be effective.
We’re gonna be okay.
So what does he ask of us?
Next time.
Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash