“So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.”
– Joshua 9:14
Joshua 9:14, what a significant, short, simple verse that is worth hiding away in your heart. Here this phrase, this is in the middle of a story about the Gibeonites deceiving the Israelites, and this verse summarizes how this deception happened. They did not ask counsel from the Lord. They moved forward in making decisions as if they did not need to ask God what he thought and how he was leading and how he was directing them. And there are so many things in our lives… I just think about the decisions we make every day. And we will all make decisions today, we’ll all make decisions tomorrow, and scripture calls us to, God and his word calls us to pray continually, to seek God continually. So as we make decisions, particularly significant decisions, we must make sure that such decision-making is covered in prayer.
Help us to make decisions in accord with your word and step with your Spirit.
That we are seeking the Lord all the time, asking, inquiring of the Lord, God, what do you want me to do here? God, what do you want me to do there? This is why it’s so imperative for us to spend time with the Lord in the morning. One of the things I try to do during my time with the Lord in the morning is just pray through each part of my day that I know is coming.
Obviously, there are many things you don’t know are coming, you can’t plan every single thing in your day, and God often redirects our steps, but that’s it. I want to pray through different meetings I have or different things I know I’ll be doing, different time I’ll be spending with different people and to pray for those people and to pray for those things, those meetings, whatever it might be.
We Need God’s Guidance
And then to pray, “God, please grant me wisdom, please guide me in this way and that way all throughout the day.” And then, “God, please give me sensitivity to your spirit as you lead and guide in so many different ways I don’t see coming, that I’ve not planned for.” But that’s just it, we need to be a people, and need is the right word. We need to be people who are constantly asking of, inquiring of, seeking the Lord because we are so prone to sin. We’re so prone to wander, we’re so prone to deception, we’re so prone to making decisions as if we don’t need the guidance of God when our greatest need is the guidance of God. So it just makes sense for us to pray in light of Joshua 9:14. God, we need your guidance today. All of us.
Joshua 9:14 Praises God For His Spirit And Promises
Every single one of us praying right now, walking through different things in our lives. We’ll walk through things today, tomorrow, where we need you. We need your spirit to direct our thoughts, our desires, to direct our decision-making. Spirit of God, please direct our decision-making. Help us to make decisions in accord with your word and step with your Spirit. You see things we don’t see, you know things we don’t know. Your ways are higher than our ways. Your thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
So please help us, oh God. And we praise you for your promise to help us. Oh God, we praise you for James 1 that promises us when we ask you for wisdom, you promise to give it and to give it generously to us as we ask in faith. Oh God, forgive us, why would we not ask for your wisdom, your leadership, your guidance every day, all the time when we know you’ve promised to give it? God, you’re so good to us.
Joshua 9:14 Wants God To Lead Us
You’re so gracious to us. So we say, today, please lead us. We inquire of you. And maybe the best thing to do is even right after this podcast episode is over for each of us just to pray through specific ways we need your help to ask, to inquire of you and specific ways that we need your guidance today. We love you Lord, and we love you, Jesus, for making this kind of communion with God possible, that we might ask and inquire of you, the Lord of the universe, for everything we need and you promise to give it to us. Everything we need, according to the glorious riches we have in Christ Jesus. All glory be to your name. We love you. God, we praise you for the privilege of asking and inquiring of you in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
