Step One

Joshua 1 and 2, Psalm 105

I learned some new perspectives on this whole journey when I read the introduction to Joshua in my NIV study Bible.  I love that brief 3 or 4 pages of prologue, that is like a “Coles Notes” on the background of a book. 

It’s so rich.  

Like really dark chocolate. 

It tastes different than Deuteronomy.

Joshua is a different kind of story.

Joshua was a different type of man. 

The story follows Israel out of the desert into the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is the story of conquest, and fulfillment for the people of God.  The settling and establishment of Israel. Of God’s Kingdom breaking into the world.

And then I read something I’d never thought of before, and I think it’s going to change the way I read the rest of this story.   The NIV notes say that the conquered land itself would not become Israel’s national possession by right of conquest but it belonged to the LORD.

So the land

Belonging to the LORD

Had to be cleansed

Of all the remnants of paganism.

Joshua is not an epic account

Of Israel’s heroic generation

Stepping up to the plate

To finish

What their fathers

Could not start.

It is not the story of Israel’s conquest of Canaan. 

It is the story of how God,

To whom the whole world belongs,

Commissioning His People

Under His servant Joshua

To take Canaan

In His Name

Out of the hands of the idolatrous Canaanites.

It’s the story of how He helped them in this enterprise

And gave them “conditional tenancy”

In this land

As a fulfillment of an ancient covenant pledge. 

So this conquest

Of Israel into Canaan

Is a holy war

In pursuit of holiness

For the place

In which God will dwell among His People.

I love that we have been catching glimpses of Joshua throughout Moses’ leadership.  This Joshua who has been shadowing Moses for all those 40 years of desert wandering.  This Joshua now slips into Moses sandals.

And God speaks to Joshua and says: Joshua Ch 1:3 “ I will give you every place where you set your foot.”   So that is the first Word.  I wonder how you walk into the unknown like that, when God has spoken that kind of outcome already?  How does that set the stage for your leadership debut?

Joshua,

who had already seen the land and its inhabitants,

felt Israel could easily take hold of it.  

Yet the nation had melted with fear.

The irony.  

We hear from Rahab.  

When she gives shelter to two spies in Jericho.  

Ch 2: 11 “When the people heard of it (The Israelites coming through the Red Sea and Egypt swept away in it)

Our hearts melted

And everyone’s courage failed

Because of you

For the LORD your God

Is God of heaven above

And on the earth below.”

The irony….

That the Canaanite people

Were also shaking

Shaken by Who was with Israel.

The God of Angel Armies.

When Israel was trusting in its own armies.

And had a meltdown of her own. 

So that’s how Joshua is walking.

On this holy quest

For God

Who is completely going before him.

I’m so excited about what that means for our stories.

Especially when we are shaking

And shaken.  

And some of us are shaking today.

That God is going to put on a show

Like we’ve never seen before.

We can walk too,

In these places where we set our feet.

These places that belong to God.  

Places where God calls us to get our feet wet. 

Walk with Me…..