“Timing & Strategy”

Lately God’s been very intentional in leading me while spending time in the Word, and He’s been having me study the book of Joshua. Joshua tells the story about how leadership passes from Moses to Joshua as the Israelites crossed over to claim the land God promised them.

I’ve only read to chapter 6, bc literally He allows me to read a small portion before He hits me with the lesson. Today’s “word” was on timing and strategy. As usual I don’t think much of it, so I kinda put a pin in it. But it didn’t take long before the convo between my wife and I let me know that as always, His Word and His timing is intentional.

One of the things that stuck out from my reading recently was how in each battle/obstacle the Israelites face, God doesn’t use the same battle plan to overcome the enemy. He’s GOD, so it’s not like He has to pull out The Art of War and use different tactics each time, yet depending on the enemy He does! In one instance, He has the people march around the city for seven days, then shout (praise) on the 7th in order to claim victory. The next He has Joshua set up an ambush on one side of the city while there’s a decoy attack on the other side.

Takeaway: don’t box GOD in to how He’s going to work out the situation!

There are times He says to go a certain direction, to move like THIS instead of THAT, to not move at all. And we have to be sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit to not only have faith in Him, but to also trust He knows what’s best and wants what’s best for us.

A story I’m always reminded of when I think about waiting on God’s timing is in 1 Samuel 13:8, when Saul was waiting (for as long as he FELT he could) on Samuel - the man of God - he decides not to wait any longer and makes the sacrifice to God himself even though his instructions were to wait for Samuel to return and do it. Because he didn’t listen and wait, not only did he lose the battle but he lost his covenant with GOD, the kingdom and eventually his life.

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“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him…” - Psalm 37:7