Joshua 9: Ask God First

^“14 The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord. ¹⁵ Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.” -Joshua 9:14-15

God had commanded the Israelites to not make alliances with the surrounding nations. The Gibeonites realized their weakness to Israel’s army and plotted to trick Israel. How? By acting as if they were a nation from a faraway land that served no threat to Israel.

Their scheme was convincing. The Israelites looked at their supplies and believed the lie. The one phrase that alerted readers of the wrong taking place was the phrase, “but did not inquire of the Lord.”

The Israelites knew what to do, but failed to check with God first. As a result, they made a poor decision with long-term consequences.

Sound familiar? We’ve all been in positions where we felt we had the information to make a wise decision and did it without praying or consulting with God first. We later discover the choice was really serving our own self-interests rather than God’s will and consequences result. The Israelites are but one example of the repeated human experience that often forgets to seek God’s wisdom before making a decision.

We can either ignore Joshua 9 or learn from it. To learn from it, we must be diligent to pray before making any major decision. Let’s strive to “inquire of the Lord” in our lives today.

Let’s talk about it on Facebook! Share your thoughts, pictures, or videos on handwriting Scripture.

+++

Dillon Burroughs is the author and coauthor of numerous books and is handwriting a copy of all 31,173 verses of the Bible at HolyWritProject.com. Find out more about Dillon at Facebook.com/readdB or readdB.com.