AP

Joshua 2:24   [The two men who had spied out Jericho] said to Joshua, “The LORD has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us.”

I don’y know how many times throughout the course of my life I have worried myself sick about the challenge of difficult tasks ahead of me in the Lord’s service, only to find that, when I get to the point of having to do the task, the Lord who has called me serve him has already gone before me and prepared the way to make the seemingly impossible possible!

I’ve read (and taught Sunday School lessons, and preached sermons) about how Gideon ventured down into the camp of the ‘invincible’ Midian army and overheard a soldier in a tent recounting to his comrade a dream he had had the night before concerning a cake of barley bread rolling down into the Midianite camp and flattening the tents, and the comrade saying, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite.  God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands” (Judges 7:14) – which gave Gideon the impetus he needed to face the task with courage … and succeed.

Or the account of the powerful Assyrian army under Sennacherib laying seige against defenceless Jerusalem and then 185,000 Assyrian soldiers ‘waking up in the morning dead’ (2 Kings 19:35)!  Or the way the Lord prepared Peter’s heart, and cleared the way before him, to successfully declare the Gospel to Cornelius and his household in Acts 10-11.  The list goes on.
I think of Jesus saying to his disciples, “Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say.  Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11), or the apostle Paul’s encouraging – and challenging – words: “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.  Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel, without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved – and that by God” (Philippians 1:27-28).

O Lord, may my timid, anxious spirit, and apparent lack of confidence in your promises, not keep me from being useful to you in declaring the glorious and powerful Gopel of Christ to our confused and frightened lost generation – because you are always going ahead of me, preparing the hearts of your people to receive it and respond!
May the sovereign Lord, in his mercy and grace, ‘[give] the whole land into our hands’ in these days when a message of hope is in such short supply.  Let us pray to that end.
– Bruce Christian