Consult the Lord

There is a very interesting chapter in the Book of Joshua. It is chapter nine and it covers the story of the Gibeonites. They were one of the small kingdoms of people living in the Promised Land when Joshua and the Israelites arrived. All the other kingdoms chose to fight alone against Joshua or to band together and fight as a group. The Gibeonites chose a different path. They decided the best thing they could do was lie. They knew they couldn’t beat the Israelites in battle so they used deception to try and preserve themselves. They sent representatives to Joshua claiming to be from a far away land, and they wanted to make a treaty with the Israelites. I really can’t blame the Gibeonites for doing this. The Israelites bought what they were selling and made a peace treaty with them.

A few days later the lie was discovered. They were finally honest when confronted by Joshua. He asked them why they lied, “We did it because we—your servants—were clearly told that the Lord your God commanded his servant Moses to give you this entire land and to destroy all the people living in it. So we feared greatly for our lives because of you. That is why we have done this” Joshua 9:24. I find their reasoning interesting. They really seem to believe that God was going to do what He said He would. They reference Moses and the Jews possessing the entire land. They remind me a little of Rahab as she protected the spies and the fact that she believed that Jericho would fall to the Israelites. The Gibeonites felt they were going to be defeated because God was against them, and they were totally right.

Joshua and the Israelites upheld the treaty they made with the Gibeonites. They had included God as a part of that oath to not attack them and view them as friends. Looking back at everything that happened in Joshua Chapter 9 how in the world did the Israelites find themselves in this position, to begin with? How did they fall for the lies of the Gibeonites? The answer is found in Joshua 9:14 “So the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the Lord.” They looked at all the evidence in front of them, but they didn’t ask God a single thing. They got into this situation because they thought they could handle this themselves.

Thinking like this is all over our world today. We think we know best. We know how best to run our lives and what decisions we need to make in our lives, and the truth is we don’t know what to do apart from God. I’m not just talking about knowing what house to buy, what job to take, or what college to attend. Those are all the kinds of things that we don’t have a concrete Biblical answer for in most cases. What we do have is the Word of God that lays out how we are to live our lives every day and people, including Christians, seem to really be fine with not “consulting God” when it comes to those concrete things He has given us in the Bible. We all naturally want to live life like we want to, and we just want to have God’s blessing on our decisions, but that is not how any of this is supposed to work.

Where all Christians should start is to let God guide us through His Word. People want God to sky write to us when the truth of the matter is that He did write to us. He gave us the Bible that speaks to us about how we are supposed to live. If you want to “consult God” go to His Word first. Stop trying to get God on your side or to try to get an answer from Him about the latest thing you want. We often turn to God for wants and real needs when we don’t turn to and “consult Him” in the one way we can that will give us solid unmistakable answers. What I get from this idea of consulting God is that when we don’t do that we take our direction into our own hands, and just like Joshua, we will go off the rails and find ourselves in a bed of our own making. The modern Christian should be seeking God’s truth in His Word, The Bible, and use it as the main avenue for consulting God. I believe completely that if a Christian applies God’s Word to our everyday decision making then those things we need discernment about, such as the house purchase or the job offer will be easier because we will have already “consulted God” about how our lives should be lived regularly. This means our hearts and minds will be more in line with God.