Strong and Courageous

Last night in Bible study we went over the first nine verses in Joshua, particularly 6-9. If you’re not familiar with them, those are the verses where God is telling Joshua to be strong and courageous. I’ve heard these verses countless times before, but (as I’m a big fan of saying) it never hurts to be reminded! And I definitely needed to hear them last night.

I was thinking afterward about the whole strong and courageous part. God is telling Joshua to do something very difficult - to trust him in the face of what would seem humanly impossible. We saw forty years earlier that Joshua was one of only two people who wanted to obey what the Lord commanded, and he was voted down. Now the time has come to obey the Lord’s commands again, and it may still not have been the most popular idea at the time.

Why would God have told Joshua to be strong if it was going to be an easy task? The only reason he would have needed to be strong was if it was going to be something hard to do, otherwise it wouldn’t matter. The same goes for the courageous part. If there was nothing fearful ahead, then there wouldn’t have been any reason for the Lord to tell Joshua to be courageous.

These words are not only meant to be an encouragement to Joshua, but they are a command as well. God didn’t say, "You should be strong and courageous" or "you might want to be...". He told Joshua straight out, "Be strong and courageous" three times! The reason for this? God is on Joshua’s side, he has nothing to fear, he has every reason not to be afraid.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. Just as Joshua was commanded in the face of difficulties to be strong and courageous, we should do the same thing. God leads us along as a Shepherd guiding his sheep, but that doesn’t mean everything is going to be grand and easy. In fact, very often, the Lord sends us through trials. Whatever they may be, if we are following the Lord, we should be strong and courageous! Even if the odds seem to be against us and even if the people around us don’t understand, laugh at us, or even directly oppose us, the Lord is on our side - who else do we need?