Joshua 10 -- God Laughed

When this chapter opens, it certainly sounds like Joshua’s about to pay for his mistake of not checking out the story of the delegation from Gibeon before signing a peace pact with them.  Now they are calling on him to defend them as 5 Amorite kings attack them for doing just that.

 

“God in heaven must have laughed because unknown to them He was using these events to accomplish His own purposes.  Instead of having to defeat these five city-states one by one, He would help Joshua conquer them all at one time! … He used Joshua’s mistake with the Gibeonites to protect Gibeon and accelerate the conquest of Canaan,” my commentary said.  “The mistakes we make embarrass us … but we need to remember that no mistake is final for the dedicated Christian.  God can use even our blunders to accomplish His purposes.”

 

God even took over the battle, killing the enemy army with large hailstones!  The miracle wasn’t so much the timely hailstorm as it was the fact that each hailstone targeted only enemy soldiers!  The Israelites did not get hit by them!  “When God’s people are obeying God’s will, everything in the universe works for them … When we disobey God’s will, everything works against us.”

 

The greatest miracle, though, occurred when God answered Joshua’s request for more daylight hours to finish the battle.  “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and waited to go down for a full day.”  I, too, used to shake my head at that, thinking that stopping the rotation of the earth and restarting it would easily cause the seas to slosh upon all the land, wiping out vast areas, not to mention what would happen to all the people on the earth.  But God simply had to halt time itself, not the rotation of the earth.  For the soldiers fighting, one second became just like one day.  The earth didn’t know anything had happened!

 

Father, it’s encouraging to me to know that my blunders don’t buffalo You.  You don’t even have to wince and try to quickly come up with a new plan.  You’re all-knowing and unfazed by anything I do.  Nothing surprises You, and You’ve got a plan for everything that comes up, including using my mistakes for Your own good purposes.  What a great God You are!

 

Your Brother In Christ,

 

 

Gary Ford