Get Up!

After Achan stole some consecrated items and Israel's defeat by Ai, in Joshua 7, with some notes in italics - 

Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before Yahweh’s ark until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads. Joshua said, “Alas, Lord Yahweh, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? I wish that we had been content and lived beyond the Jordan! Oh, Lord, what shall I say, after Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will surround us, and cut off our name from the earth. What will you do for your great name?” I don’t know about you, but I can completely hear myself praying this kind of prayer after I’ve failed to take into account the Lord’s voice and then, on my own strength, failed completely. Here would be my own scene – perhaps you can relate:

Eugene threw himself on the couch, covered his face with hands, pulled out his hair, over the kind of day he’d had that day. He said, “Alas, Lord God, why have you chosen me at all, if you’re going to let be delivered into a day like this; a day so miserable? I wish I could be like everyone else whose life just works out! Oh, Lord, what can I say, after I’ve made such a mess of today! For the people all around me, my family, my friends, my acquaintances, will hear of it, because they surround me, and point at my ‘faith’ and laugh. What will you do for your great name – to rescue my good name?”

At no point in such a scene do I ever remember that – at the start of that day – I’d launched right in without an ounce of sense of what He was saying about the day. And no wonder Yahweh answers Joshua as He does!

Yahweh said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face like that? Israel has sinned. Yes, they have even transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. Yes, they have even taken some of the devoted things, and have also stolen, and also deceived. They have even put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel can’t stand before their enemies.” To continue my previous parallel, when I lament the way a particular day of my life has gone, I think these words of Yahweh to Joshua are similar – accounting, of course, for our New Covenant context – to what I myself might hear from Him:

The Lord then says to me, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face like that? You have been set free of sin. You have forgotten the truth of the New Covenant which my Son has given you. You have forgotten that you’re one of my devoted things, and you have neglected my voice, and been deceived. You have mixed yourself up with the world’s stuff. Without me, without my assurance of your limitless freedom, you can’t stand before the Enemy.”
​
At every point in such a word to me does He know that – all day, every minute – He’d already been speaking to me, breaking through, and communicating His presence. What a joy that we follow such a One who actually speaks!