How well do we “think God’s thoughts after Him” (Isaiah 55:8-9)? Our willingness and ability to do so determines our destiny to face life’s challenges. Otherwise, we will tend to live more like victims than victors.
We find a good example of this truth in Joshua 12. The Israelites have just faced the greatest challenge of all, the combined armed forces of 31 kings. Those kings included the dreaded King Sihon of the Amorites and the giant King Og of Bashan, known also for his strength, military prowess, handsome looks and charisma. He was so tall he needed a 13-foot bed. Their brutality and arrogance were enough to throw fear into ordinary people.
Ordinary people—that is, people who do not “think God’s thoughts after Him”—simply waver and walk away from such challenges. They doubt promises God gives to them of their Promised Land. They allow visible circumstances to define reality.
But these 31 kings took counsel against the Lord and His people, the Israelites, who had 400 years of the Lord’s promises behind them. What kind of God did the Israelites trust? Psalm 2 tells us that God regards anti-God kings with scorn. Think of a three-year-old child who crowns himself with a paper crown, robes himself in his “blankie” and proclaims himself king of the universe. Even this ridiculous image can never match our Lord’s scorn for 31 godless rulers.
Through many trials, the fickle Israelites under Joshua were coming to think God’s thoughts after Him. What a victory they won!
God looks for those among us who will trust Him for the impossible (1 Chronicles 16:9; Jeremiah 33:3). How often do we laugh in mockery at today’s enemies of God? Or do we merely tremble at them and pray for an escape hatch?
Do we lose sleep over godless enemies’ arrogance, or do we laugh at them knowing that their weapons really come from Satan and are no match for the weapons God has already given us through the cross of Christ? Do we know what our weapons are?
William Carey, the great pioneer missionary of India, preached, “Expect great things of God; attempt great things for God.”
That can happen only when we expect God to do unconventional things with and through unconventional people. Israel’s history is unconventional history. Israel’s history begins through a man and his wife who have a child at 100 and 90 years old. Later, we see Joseph rise from prison to power far from home. Think of the Red Sea miracle, and Joshua’s victories over Jericho, Ai, Adoni-bezek, and the 31 kings. How unconventional can you get?
God specializes in the impossible. He loves for us to trust Him for it. He loves to take weak and foolish people (like us) to confound the “mighty” Sihons and Ogs around us. He seeks weak, foolish and unconventional people, filled with Holy Spirit treasures in their “earthen vessels” to help defeat Satan and his arrogant puppets.
As we face life’s challenges, we do well to remember the example of Joshua and look back at times in our own lives when God did unconventional things in us—how He healed, saved, restored what seemed lost.
Let us think on these things, view our enemies with God’s eyes—and laugh!
From the Desk of Valson Abraham 