Joshua 2:1 – “Search me, O God”

Joshua chapter 2 contains an inexhaustible amount of divine principles on how to attain victory in our journey with God. In our reflection, we will seek the direction of the Holy Spirit to guide us into the critical ones for our immediate application. Let us reflect carefully and identify what God is saying to us for our present journey with Him. In verse 1, we see Joshua sending two spies to recce the place. Why did he do that?  Why was it needful? Bear in mind that while the land was theirs for the taking, there were enemy forces that had dominated it for years and would not yield their land so easily and willingly. Besides, Joshua dared not presume that the people of Canaan would give up their land without a fight. He needed to know their strength and identify the strongholds he needed to overcome so that he could strategize appropriate measures to ensure success. Sending out the two spies helped him to evaluate the enemy, evaluate his own capacity and then to decide where he should begin. 

Sun Tzu in his Art of War said: “Know yourself, know your enemy, a thousand battles, a thousand victories.” For believers, we have one more indispensable component we must add, that is “Know your God.” For us, the axiom should read like this - “Know your God, know yourself, know your enemy, a thousand battles, a thousand victories.”  How can we ever have a knowledge of God, of self and of our enemy, if we do not take time to discover them? For Joshua, knowing God and what was installed for him and his people were taken care of. God virtually revealed Himself and His plan for them to him. When God told him to “be bold and courageous,” He was revealing to him his nature. It was something Joshua needed to know about himself. Joshua wasn’t confronting his reticence. It was something that he would not face.  So, when God told him to “be bold and courageous,” He was signalling to him that it was time for him to overcome his reluctance and reticence. What’s left then was for him to explore the strength of the enemy. And he sent the two spies to do just that. This was a needful step to victory.         

We have said that the abundant life is promised to us by the Lord. Applying what we have just said, would mean that we need to connect with God. We need to know Him better and to know who we are in Him. That would then open up the avenue for us to fully lay hold of our life, the promised land of God to us. Consciously, we need to identify the predominant negative habits we have that can prevent us from living a disciplined life. If we are to build a God-honouring life, we will need first to do a private and personal recce of our life. We need to identify areas, and the kind of spiritual disciplines, we must inculcate to lay hold of our life for God. We need to look at our life with honesty and truthfulness. Why don’t we ask the Holy Spirit to help us do a personal recce? Like David who prayed in Psalm 139:23-24, may our prayer also be, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”