Against Jericho, Joshua had received a definite direction from the
Lord on how the city was to be taken. But against a relatively smaller
Ai, he depended on the advice of the people and failed. The story would
definitely have been different if he had sought the Lord before the
mission and Israel would not have gone to war with sin in the camp. How
often we are like Joshua in our spiritual warfare, we emerge from one
victory and proceed to another battle in the confidence of the last
victory, and fail to seek the guidance of God. This is the display of
arrogance. And when disaster strikes, we are quick, like Joshua to blame
the Lord.
David was a man who depended on God for every battle, he never went
into a new battle with the strategy that gave him victory in the last
one. Constantly he sought God's counsel for what to do in the face of
every new conflict, and the results were seen in the victories he had
over the nations that he fought against. The discipline of enquiry is a
vital discipline we all must learn, if daily victory is our desire. As a
person, I have incurred many falls simply because I failed to inquire
of God. If David could inquire from God and received a response from
Him, then can we do and even better, being positioned in Christ. "Lord,
what would You have me do," is a question that can save us from many
needless defeats, as Israel painfully found in the fiasco at Ai.
Toni
