Joshua 1

One of the interesting things about the life and story of Joshua is that he is someone who experienced the entire freedom narrative of the Hebrew people. He was born into slavery as a child in Egypt, then was present for all the events that took place in exodus story, and then took the people into the promised land. Despite him seeing God work in such great and mighty ways throughout his life he must still be reminded to be faithful to God’s word, brave, and strong. When God is talking to him in chapter 1, we will see him repeat this to him multiple time as he prepares him to take over for Moses. Therefore, the charge to be faithful to God’s word, brave, and strong is even more applicable to our lives as people who have not had the privilege to see such great miracles as he did.

One of the most interesting phrases that we see in the chapter is found in verse 7. Here we see God paradoxically command Joshua to be on the straight and narrow and no to turn from the left or right then followed by, in the same sentence, “that you may have good success in whatever you do”. This paradox is something that is important for all believers, especially young believers who are about to embark on their own journeys to understand. It is very easy for us to over emphasize the importance of our life choices, such as what college or trade should we do after high school, while under emphasizing the importance of our spiritual growth and dependency on the word of God, which is truly most important. One thing to keep in mind though is that this does not mean that we have total free reign in whatever we want to do and as long as we do our morning devotional our life path doesn’t matter. Joshua was given parameters on the land that he could take and was allowed and permitted freedom within those parameters. Likewise, it is the same with us, God has given all of us parameters that we must still function in.

Finally, something to think about this week and throughout this semester is the real consequences for every action or lack of action that takes place in the book of Joshua. When they take the land, they suffer losses of people on their side and there are great losses of the side of those who stand in their way. In the process of claiming the land people died and things that took many years to build are destroyed in a matter of days. We need to know that consequences like these are not outliers when it comes to following God. When we choose to follow God, we need to understand that there might be relationships in our lives that will die, and there will be areas of our lives we have invested in dismantled. This is why we too must look to God to take courage and to be brave just as we see Joshua do.

Questions/Discussion targets

Are we putting our own abilities to plan out our future lives over our relationship with God and devotion to his word?

How can we better prepare ourselves to be brave and strong for when things get tough in our lives?