Have you ever looked at a situation in your life and wondered if God is on your side or not?
You know that feeling – when you’ve made plans, taken decisions, prepared strategies, and you sit and wonder, “is God on my side in this?”
“Will God favor me in this?”
Whether it’s plans about our education, our careers, our families or our relationships, at some point or another, most of us have spent time wondering if God is going to bless the decisions we’ve taken or not.
There’s a scene in the Bible, where Joshua, the leader of the Israelites is kind of in a similar situation.
He’s about to face the biggest battle of his life against the city of Jericho, a city that was so heavily fortified with its walls, that invading it was pretty much impossible.
In the midst of this situation, as Joshua is probably wondering about the decisions he needs to take and the strategy he needs to prepare, he sees a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.
Except this wasn’t any ordinary man. This man seemed to be an angelic warrior, and something about him made Joshua realize that if this guy was on his team, he would win for sure.
So he does what we all have done. He walks up to this man and asks, “are you for us or for our enemies?”
What he’s saying is, “hey there! You seem like a really strong, wise, warrior like person. And it’s almost like whichever side you’re on, that side’s going to win. So, are you on our side? Are we going to win? Or are we going to lose?”
And here’s what the man says – “Neither.”
Uh oh! Well, that can’t be good.
But the man continues, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”
So there you have – the COMMANDER of the LORD’s ARMY right in front of you.
If you’re Joshua, or anyone else for that matter, you WANT him on your side, and the fact that he just said ‘neither’ may not sit very well with you.
Oh, did I mention? Many theologians agree that this man, this Commander of the LORD’s army, is Jesus.
Here’s Joshua, asking if God is on his side, if God will bless the plans he has made, and the answer he’s getting is not such a positive one.
And yet, Joshua realizes a powerful truth in that moment.
Joshua wanted to know if God would bless the plans he had made, but he realized that God would first bless the plans that God had made.
And the question wasn’t really, “God, are you on my side?”
The real question was towards Joshua. Because it was God asking, “Joshua, are YOU on MY side?”
And Joshua responds the most beautiful way, the only appropriate way to this kind of God. He falls facedown in reverence and asks, “What message does my Lord[e] have for his servant?”
Or in other words, “I’m on your side. What are your orders?”
So the next time you make your big plans and wonder if God will bless them, if God is on your side, stop and pray. Ask Him yourself. Because it might just be God asking you –
“Are you on my side?”
And the appropriate answer is always the same – to bow in reverence, and simply say in surrender, “yes! What are your orders?”
