Joshua 7:6-9 – What to do when things go wrong

There was probably no one who could feel the depth of Joshua’s pain. He came this far, was obedient to the command of God yet suffered such a tragedy. Never had he felt so humiliated. It was a painful moment for him, more so than anyone in Israel. He must have felt let down. Here we see Joshua before the Lord shattered and torn. Both he and the elders of Israel went into mourning putting dust over their heads. He uttered to the Lord out of a broken heart. To some extent, he was angry with the Lord and brought an accusation against Him.

 

Joshua was soon to learn that seeking and praying to God was the step in the right direction. It could certainly open the way to discover the fault line of their tragedy. He must have wondered what went wrong. Why were they so powerless even in battling so small a village?  It was pointless to blame God yet Joshua did. We must learn from his mistake and not engage in the blame game when things go wrong for us. We should seek the Lord by all means. But be aware that no amount of prayer would help if we do not identify the root cause of the problem and rectify it. When things go wrong, or when a tragedy strikes, the best cause of action is to seek the Lord, analyze where we have stumbled, repent and seek to make the necessary alignment. It will do us well to conduct a self-examination and identify the root of the problem and make the needful correction. That was precisely what Joshua did in Joshua 7:6-9.

 

The things we read in this account did show us what is the one definite thing that we must do, as well as one thing we must not do, when we encounter a tragedy in life. Like Joshua, we must turn humbly to God and repent and plead with Him to show us where we have gone wrong. This was what Joshua did. He rent his clothes and fell upon his face before the Ark. This was an act of humility before the presence of God. In his failure to seek the Lord before the attack of Ai, and his heeding the advice of the spies to send only 3,000 men to battle it, he had shown a degree of pride. And that must be dealt with.  

 

And what we must not do is this: never blame the Lord for any difficult time we encounter in life. Verse 7 tells us that he blamed God saying, “Alas, O Lord God, why did You ever bring these people over the Jordan, only to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? If only we had been willing to dwell beyond the Jordan!” Like Joshua, we can develop the tendency to blame God for our personal failure too. People do have unwholesome thought concerning the intention of God when a thing goes wrong. We must avoid such thoughts because God is never the author of evil. Let us heed the warning of James1:13-15. We are told that when facing a temptation, we are not to say, “’I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death”. Succumbing to temptation is a result of one acting in the flesh. So never, never blame God.

 

Perhaps the one redeeming act of Joshua here was that he was still concerned for the name of God. He did not want God’s name to be dragged through the mud because of their failure. This teaches us to always seek to preserve the honor of God. And the best way to do that is to think before we act. Remember, if we will not take the time to do it right the first time, we will always need to find the time to do it again. That will slow our progress. So, let us seek to do it right all the time, every time.