Originally published Friday, 06 January 2017.
JOSHUA: KICKING FEAR ASIDE AND TRUSTING THE COURAGE SUPPLIED!
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”." {Joshua 1:9, ESV}
READ: JOSHUA 1:1-9; DEUTERONOMY 11:24, GENESIS 12:1-3
How often have you felt the Lord prompting your steps, maybe even so much as giving you the billboard sign "go here!", and yet you still have trouble following? Stuck in the questioning if you are hearing God correctly and second guessing God's promptings altogether because it doesn't look how you expected.
Sounds crazy, right? but you are not alone! I've had God whisper a sweet "go here" even giving those easy turn by turn directions and still struggled to obey. How direct, strategic, and purposeful are God's directions to Joshua and the Israelites in our passage today. Here is the land I'm giving you, it's from here to here and it's your's — you only need to obey me and take possession. No question about it! No hidden hoops to jump through. Go when God says go, obey, and the land is yours.
It really doesn't get much clearer than that! And yet, even when I've felt the Lord map out my steps, I've still questioned them. Or things get in my way and I get distracted. Or worse, I allow fear to take the lead and I stumble off course.
I never intend to stumble off course but I do. And it happens when I forget my first love when I fail to arm myself every morning in God's word and in prayer with the One who loves me unconditionally. I'm not strong on my own, my true strength to withstand all that this life throws at me comes from God. My strength and courage shows up when I set my gaze rightly fixed upon the Lord, leaning in to know Him through daily reading of His Word and in prayer.
The beauty in today's truth is that we are not expected to act alone in any of God's commandments!
I love that God's command to be strong and courageous isn't a command to act alone and in our own strength, but instead, it's God who supplies the instruction manual, the know-how, to help us in every way to walk in the strength and courage that He supplies.
First, God promises to never leave us! We are not meant to be strong and courageous on our own, Hallelujah! We don't have to muster up the strength and then go, we only need to trust first and keep stepping and God sticks by us and supplies all we need. That is so comforting! Everything feels easier when we aren't doing it alone, right?
Second, we have a responsibility to be obedient and to meditate on His Word daily. Why, because God's word reminds us of who God is. When we spend time each day learning and being reminded of who God is, we are strengthened through the knowledge of Him for how He meets us in our everyday circumstance.
When we remember these two things, that we are not alone and strength comes from knowing God, we will be successful and prosper in all we do. It's kinda fool proof! huh?
"Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." {Joshua 1:7b-8, ESV}
God's promise: "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses." {Joshua 1:3, ESV}
Trust that God is with you today, lean into His help and courage for your day!
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