Topic: A New Strategy — Thursday September 28, 2017.
Text: Joshua 8:1-10
Key Verse: “So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai: and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour, and sent them away by night” (Joshua 8:3).
The Battle of Midway against the Japanese imperial army is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy attack against Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian, John Keegan has called it “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.”
Joshua and all Israel suffered a shock defeat at the hands of tiny Ai in the previous chapter because Achan had taken the accursed thing from the previous invasion of Jericho. From the text today, the Lord comforted Joshua and Israel after the problem of sin had been settled. He gave them a complete new strategy for the military invasion of Ai. Under this new plan, Joshua was to lead the attack with all the men of war in Israel instead of just three thousand men used in the earlier failed attack.
An ambush was planned and the city was to be set on fire after their fighters were drawn away with a pretended retreat. There are many lessons we learn from a passage like this. The fear of failing again should not hinder a believer from making new trial. If we encounter failure in life, it calls for self-examination, confession of sin and cleansing; it also calls for a review of strategy like Israel did under God’s directives. Eventually, success will come when there is a new way of work and direction that will lead to the desired success, which can only be discovered when we think outside the box.
Your next attempt might just be the clincher you have been waiting for. With divine presence, you are more than a conqueror.
Thought for the day: Take your failures in life as stepping stones to your success.
Bible Reading in one Year: 2 Peter 1-3
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.