March 20 - Ai Yi Yi!

 Read today’s texts first: Joshua 7.8; Psalms 69; 1 Corinthians 5

MAXIMize YOUR DAY

You can’t eat yesterday’s manna (except on the Sabbath) and you can’t fight new battles with old strategies. 

Joshua and the Israelites quickly go from the thrill of victory at Jericho to the agony of defeat at Ai. I love Bible names, especially when they fit the story. For example, at Shittim, they were in deep doo-doo (Numbers 25:1-3). After their first attack on Ai, it was “Ai yi yi” (Joshua 7:3-5). Another way to remember this city is “A (eh), I got this!”

After their miraculous rout at Jericho, they quickly became overconfident. One look at the far less fortified city of Ai and the scouts were saying, “hey, we don’t even need to send the whole army. Two or three thousand should do it. Give the other guys the day off!” So Joshua forgot about his bare-footed conversation with Jesus, decided he didn’t even need to pray this time, and, as a result, lost 36 men.

This is so typical of human nature. As soon as things start to go well, we think we’re the reason and soon forget about God. Then we fail, fall flat on our faces, come crawling back to God, only to repeat the cycle. It happens over and over again with God’s people, the Israelites and us, myself included!

There are at least two things to remember from this story. First, keep sin out of the camp. We can see it with Israel (7:11,12) and with the church (1 Cor. 5:1,2). If we expect God to fight our battles for us we had better keep our hearts pure. Second, don’t fall back on what worked in the past. Israel learned you can’t eat yesterday’s manna (except on the Sabbath) and you can’t fight new battles with old strategies. It’s fascinating to see how God gave Israel a new plan for every challenge they would face - for Ai it was the first recorded example of the classic pincer movement. Israel would need to consult with God every time they went to war. The same is true for us.

“Lord, thank You for the successes You’ve given me in the past. But today is a new day and I need to hear from You for the challenges ahead!”