Devotional - April 10, 2004

Forty years earlier, Joshua was one of a dozen men sent into the new land to scope it out. You may remember when they returned and gave a report, he and Caleb were the only two who believed God was able to give them victory over the inhabitants of the land. The other ten failed to trust God for the victory, convinced all the people of the same and thereby earned a death sentence in the desert rather than the blessing of God's promise to Abraham.

Instead of marching into the Promised Land trusting God for victory, the people walked a long winding funeral dirge through the dry arid land. Then, when all those who doubted God had died, they came back to where it all started with the same opportunity. This time, it would be a new generation of people who would believe God.

It's significant that Joshua, as the new leader of Israel, only sent two men into the land this time instead of sending twelve like his predecessor. The first witnesses stayed in the land for forty days and spent forty years walking on a beach without water. The two men who Joshua sent probably spent seven days and returned a report that God was able to give them all the land.

Many of us are walking through the desert of loneliness, depression and defeat because we've looked at things through the eyes of fear and not through the eyes of God. We've had many opportunities to trust God but turned and went the other way. It wasn't our enemies whose hearts melted in fear, but our own.

You don't want to live in defeat and depression, do you? Why not learn a lesson from Joshua? He sent two witnesses, not twelve. He needed a short time, not a month and a half to determine who is stronger, God or his enemies. In other words, Joshua made no allowance for defeat. I imagine his orders to those two witnesses went something like this: "Ok guys, go in and look around for a few days. Let God direct you as you listen and look around. But if you plan to return with any other message but, 'He is able,' you might as well stay in there because we're coming in."

What is faith? Joshua was willing to die trusting God in a face off with his enemy rather than die defeated never having done so. God, give us the heart of Joshua. Every day we have another opportunity to trust God or run and hide. May today be the day we stand up and trust Him to do what He promised to do.