CHAPTER 2: HOPE AFTER FAILURE
The LORD, He is the One who goes before you.
He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was ambitious from the start. He moved smoothly through the House of Representatives, was elected to the Senate, and then became the Senate’s majority leader. Still, his eyes never left one address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue —the White House.
He was a tall Texan —six foot four —not to mention wealthy and influential. He had a reputation for getting things done, even if he had to cut a few corners along the way. By the end of a typical day, he had outworked and outmaneuvered everyone in the room. He wouldn’t take no for an answer on anything, including his drive to be president of the United States.
In the two years leading up to the 1960 campaign, it seemed like his greatest dream lay within his grip. He was the highest-ranking Democrat in the nation and one of the most respected men in America. His opponent was considered a lightweight in politics —a skinny, sickly young man who, in Johnson’s view, was little more than a playboy living on his father’s money: John F. Kennedy.
Summoning advisers to his Texas ranch in 1958, Johnson told them plainly that it was his destiny to be president and that he was going to run for the office.
So the men around him began to lay the foundation for a campaign to put their man in the White House. Since the Republicans had held the presidency for two terms, the Democrats poured all they had into their leading light. The planners waited for Johnson’s announcement that he would throw his ten-gallon hat in the ring.
Then they waited some more.
Johnson, who had spoken of this dream for as long as anyone had known him, had cold feet. He was, according to the White House press secretary at the time, “a man badly torn.”[1] Meanwhile, Kennedy was racing across the nation sewing up delegates to win the nomination for himself. By the time Johnson got around to announcing his candidacy, it was too late. Kennedy had beaten him to the punch.
Historians have speculated why such a driven and powerful man stalled at the most important moment of his career. Biographer Robert A. Caro has a theory. He believes that for all his drive and bravado, Johnson was paralyzed by a fear of failure —the fear that he would end up like his father.
When Lyndon was a child, his family was among the most respected in town, living in a large house on a sprawling Texas ranch. His father, Samuel, was a successful man —a member of the state House and the most prosperous businessman in the area. Sam bought the first car anyone had ever seen in those parts, and he had a chauffeur to drive it. The Johnson family was riding high.
But just as young Lyndon came into his teenage years, disaster struck: the business failed. The family lost its ranch and moved into a little shanty house, the next step up from homelessness. From being the highest in society, the Johnsons plummeted to the lowest. Townspeople brought food to keep them from starving. Lyndon was humiliated beyond words. One classmate recalls that when Lyndon was taunted at school, he responded that one day he would be president of the United States. His classmates laughed and said they wouldn’t vote for him. He retorted that he wouldn’t need their votes.
From that moment, LBJ dreamed of being president. But when the prize was finally within his grasp, he was traumatized by a fear of failing in a way that would bring public humiliation, as had happened to his father. He was so afraid of defeat that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Caro writes,
His father’s fall had shown him that failure could mean not merely failure but terror, the terror of living in a house that, month by month, you were afraid would be taken from you by the bank; that failure could mean not merely terror but ruin, permanent ruin; that failure —defeat —might be something from which you would never recover. And failure in public —failing in a way that was visible: having to move off your ranch; having your credit cut off at stores you had to walk past every day; no longer holding your public office —could mean a different, but also terrible, kind of pain: embarrassment, disgrace, humiliation.[2]
According to Caro, that’s why Johnson anguished and languished over his run for office. And that’s why Kennedy beat him for the 1960 nomination and history took the strange and twisted course that followed. He did eventually make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but it wasn’t by a course he ever would have scripted out for himself.
Those who fear failure are paralyzed by the “r word”: risk. They may undermine their own efforts without even realizing it in an attempt to escape the anxiety of looming failure. Have you known people like that? I have —gifted people who might have done great things in life but wouldn’t, and couldn’t, because they were protecting themselves from disappointment.
Nearly all of us have felt the fear of failure at some point in our lives. In fact, many of the most-admired people in the Bible experienced it. We see this consistently in the “call narratives” of the Bible —those accounts in which God summons a person to a particular task. The more prominent examples are Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
In the Old Testament, these call narratives have a similar form and progression. First there is an encounter with God, either directly or through one of His angels. This encounter occurs not in some sacred place but within the normal routines of life. Moses is tending sheep, and Gideon is threshing wheat. A divine encounter ensues, bringing a call and challenge: Your moment has arrived —I am sending you on the mission of your life!
The calling is usually followed by objections from the person called —many of them born out of a fear of failure. Moses responded to his call by saying: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). Even after God’s assurances of success, Moses continued to object: “O my Lord, I am not eloquent . . . but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exodus 4:10).
When God called Gideon to fight against the Midianites, his initial response was similar: “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” (Judges 6:15). When God called Jeremiah to speak words of prophecy to God’s people, Jeremiah’s objection follows the same pattern: “Then said I: ‘Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth’” (Jeremiah 1:6).
Obviously, the fear of failure is not a modern phenomenon; it is a timeless human fear. Some of God’s choicest servants through the ages displayed this fear in spite of God’s promises of success. Their stories provide insight into how God responds to human fears. In every case, He draws alongside His servant with assurance and affirmation.
Nowhere is God’s concern for a fearful servant more evident than in Joshua 1, where He prepares Joshua to lead Israel after the death of Moses. In this chapter, I will focus mainly on this call and its accompanying assurance, because here all the principles scattered throughout the other call narratives come together in an organized, step-by-step strategy for dealing with the fear of failure. The theme of Joshua’s call is transition —the transition of Israel’s leadership from Moses to Joshua. To fully appreciate the magnitude of this transition, we must remember the greatness of Moses.
He is certainly the most revered figure in Judaism, and he ranks among the greatest men in history. An entire generation of Israelites followed Moses out of slavery and into the wilderness. Deuteronomy 34 tells how he died at the ripe age of 120, still a sharp and vigorous man. Israel had seen no other prophet of Moses’ caliber —a man so close to God, so endowed with God’s miraculous power. They had seen him raise his staff as God parted the waters of the Red Sea. They had seen him stand up to Pharaoh and call down bread from heaven. They had waited at the base of the mountain as God dictated His Ten Commandments to him.
The book of Exodus makes a statement about Moses that is not said of any other person in Scripture: “The LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11). On more than one occasion, Moses even spent forty days on a mountain in fellowship with Him. God grants this kind of intimacy only to those who desire it. Moses belonged to an inner circle of people who enjoyed holy intimacy with God.
The people would grumble against Moses, but in the end they would always follow him, for they knew he was God’s man. His leadership filled them with frustration at first, then deeper devotion. And when the great man finally died, they wept in the plains of Moab for thirty days (Deuteronomy 34:8).
There’s no question —Moses would have been a hard act to follow. That was the call to greatness that thrust itself upon Joshua.
Moses’ death came at a perilous time in Israel’s history. The previous generation had been too fearful to put their hope in God’s promise of victory and refused to enter the Promised Land at its very border (Numbers 13–14). That entire generation had died off during thirty-eight years of wandering in the wilderness. Now an all-new generation was gathered on the east bank of the Jordan River, ready to cross over and take possession of the Promised Land. They were ready to step out in faith and claim their home. But it wasn’t going to be easy —it never is.
For one thing, after four decades of peace, the Israelites hadn’t fought a serious battle for forty years, and the Canaanites they would soon face were said to be tall, sturdy, battle-hardened warriors who made the Israelite spies feel “like grasshoppers” in comparison (Numbers 13:33). The enemy waited behind strong, fortified walls. They even had horses and chariots (Joshua 17:16).
Then there was the problem of food. The people had grown accustomed to receiving manna from the hand of God at their doorstep each morning. Now, as we read in Exodus 16:35 and Joshua 5:12, the manna would cease, and the Israelites would be responsible for cultivating food from the land.
How would you like to have been Joshua, taking the reins of leadership from someone like Moses at such a critical time? If you had been called in as a consultant to help Joshua prepare for his new role, what would your counsel have been? Actually, Joshua did have a consultant —God Himself. God delivered to Joshua one of the greatest motivational speeches I’ve ever read. His words have often encouraged me at times of great personal challenge.
If you are afraid about your future, if you are being called to a new assignment that seems beyond your abilities, or if you just need encouragement to continue on in whatever God has called you to do, you, too, will find courage as you study God’s charge to Joshua in the face of his greatest challenge. We’ll explore six powerful principles from Joshua to send you forth as a conqueror rather than a hostage to your own fear of failure.
The Principle of Divine Perspective
As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.
God looked upon an anxious new leader and gave him the words of a lifetime. He began by reminding Joshua of the adventures he had enjoyed as Moses’ protégé through the years. Joshua had been witness to a rich history of miracles and magnificence, of God proving His faithfulness in a trek through a hostile empire and then into the wilderness.
God encouraged Joshua to remember what he had experienced as Moses’ partner in ministry —how He had led Moses and how He had performed mighty acts to help Moses lead the people. God assured Joshua, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” Joshua was to view his daunting task through the perspective of God’s previous demonstrations of power and faithfulness.
I love to read biographies of Christian leaders because they remind me of the principle of divine perspective. As God has been faithful to His followers in the past, He will be faithful to us in the present. He has put no limits on what He is willing to do for you and me. His actions might even exceed what He has done in the past. He is able “to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).
Fear of failure is nothing new —nor is overcoming it. Think of the seventeenth-century Pilgrims who left their homes to find freedom of worship in the New World. They must have been daunted by the prospect of crossing the Atlantic in their tiny ships and surviving in an uncharted wilderness. But they overcame their fear because they had faith in God’s power and provision. That is the benefit of perspective —it allows us to see beyond the trials that frighten us in the here and now.
God has never called anyone to a task and then abandoned him or her by the side of the road. So if we fear what God wants us to do, our perspective needs adjusting so that we focus not on the size of the job but on the size of God.
The Principle of Divine Purpose
Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them —the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.
God gave Joshua a specific thing to do! He told Joshua to walk on every piece of ground in the land of Canaan and promised him that every piece of ground he walked on would be given to him and to his people forever. God was giving Joshua focus.
The 1993 movie The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning one. It grossed nearly $369 million worldwide. But the movie almost didn’t get made. The script was in development for five and a half years. Nine different writers produced at least twenty-five different screenplays. Producer Arnold Kopelson said,
There were times that everyone would say, “You’re wasting your time. Why are you doing this? You’re wasting money.” Warner Brothers put the property into turn-around. . . . We had spent about two million dollars in writing costs and they were concerned that this would never bear out. And I said, “Listen, I have an instinct about this. My gut tells me that this is going to be a success.”[3]
Granted, sometimes instincts and gut feelings don’t work out. But in this case, they did. Kopelson’s determination illustrates an important point: maintaining purpose and focus in the face of obstacles can be the difference between failure and success.
Seeing The Fugitive through to opening day meant the producer had to stay focused for more than five years. But Joshua had to maintain his own focus for fourteen years, the time required to win the Promised Land. It helped that Joshua didn’t have to trust his gut feeling; he had the promises of God.
J. Oswald Sanders helps us understand this promise to Joshua:
The land belonged to Israel by direct gift from God, Possessor of heaven and earth. The land became theirs experientially only when they walked around it and actually took possession. This fundamental spiritual principle carries over into the experience of the New Testament Christian. “According to your faith let it be to you” (Matthew 9:29).[4]
But having a promise from God is no guarantee of success if we lose our focus. God’s responsibility is to make the promise; ours is to stay focused on it in the face of fear. To achieve success, Joshua and the new generation of Israelites had to focus their minds and hearts on the purpose God had given them.
There’s a special, liberating power in knowing exactly what it is we must do. That’s why people derive great satisfaction from making and checking off to-do lists. To boil down all the complexities of the day into bullet points of activity is to see our way to productivity. On the other hand, whole organizations fail because people are confused about their job descriptions. Set a clear focus in your life, and fear will be crowded out. The more you fix your hope on God’s purpose for you, the more you will overcome your fear.
The Principle of Divine Persuasion
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage.
While Reverend William Sykes was the chaplain of University College, Oxford, he described a group of undergraduates with physical disabilities he had known. Their limitations were many, but what linked them together was a quiet courage within them. This experience caused him to ponder the meaning of that word. Looking to the writings of Cardinal Manning, he found this entry:
The Italians call it Coraggio, or greatness of heart; the Spaniards, Corage[sic]; the French, Courage, from whom we have borrowed it. And we understand it to mean manliness, bravery, boldness, fearlessness, springing not from a sense of physical power, or from insensibility to danger or pain, but from the moral habit of self-command, with deliberation, fully weighing present dangers, and clearly foreseeing future consequences, and yet in the path of duty advancing unmoved to its execution.[5]
Somehow, the students had found a strength inside that transcended their physical limitations. Faith is an inestimable power, and often it grows by the convincing words of someone who persuades us that we, too, can live courageously.
Who among us does not have some kind of disability —in skill, desire, motivation, strength, experience, courage, or the countless other traits required to make good progress in life? It’s called being human —and it’s why every person needs the same exhortation Joshua needed when he stood on the banks of the Jordan River and looked across to a hostile land.
He must have remembered what happened when the Israelites stood at the borders of the Promised Land almost forty years earlier. They had God’s promise, yet the challenge paralyzed them. It wasn’t the giants in the land that disabled them; it was their giant fear. To prevent this new generation from making the same mistake, Joshua needed to display strength and courage. This meant he needed to be persuaded that God would enable them to meet the challenge. God had just the right words for Israel’s new leader:
Be strong and of good courage. . . . Only be strong and very courageous. . . . Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage.
This is the heart of God’s motivational speech to Joshua. Three times He tells him to be strong and courageous. The word strong means to be resolute, firm, and not easily swayed. Courageous conveys a sense of daring, an openness to risk.
Joshua had proved that he had that inner strength within him. We witness it on the day the spies returned, ten of them giving a fearful report of unconquerable giants. Only two men, Joshua and Caleb, wanted to take hold of God’s promises and push forward despite the obstacles. The ten insisted, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we” (Numbers 13:31). The tales of terror drowned out the counsel of courage.
When we face such a situation, we’ll either focus on the problem or on the solution. Ten men turned into grasshoppers in their own eyes simply by giving rein to their fear; two men focused on God and His power. Ten spoke of the size of the enemy; two spoke of the size of their God.
Sometimes the majority gets it wrong. The wisdom of God is often found on the narrow path that few travel rather than in the easy and popular choice. Leadership is a great deal more than gauging which way the wind is blowing. It often requires standing firm as the current tries to bend you in another direction.
Paul Laurence Dunbar’s little poem makes this point:
Minorities, since time began,
Have shown the better side of man;
And often in the lists of Time
One man has made a cause sublime![6]
When I’ve faced challenges in my life, I’ve drawn inspiration from envisioning Joshua at the banks of his river, learning to be strong and courageous, or holding on to the words of Paul: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). These inspiring passages persuade me to be firm and willing to take risks for God. I believe this practice will work for you as well.
The Principle of Divine Priority
Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.
Now we come to the heart of the matter: God’s Word is the only path to success.
God didn’t tell Joshua that his priority needed to be military strategy, financial backing, or bilateral relations with neighboring countries. These things have a place, but they are not the priority. Here was Joshua’s priority: meditate day and night on the principles of the Word of God.
This requires dedication somewhat like that of a long-distance runner who is training to compete in an Olympic marathon. The runners I’ve read about are incredibly focused. They live with a Spartan’s commitment to a single priority —winning that marathon and standing on an Olympic podium. Running informs every aspect of their lives. They eat specific foods, weighing the grams and counting the calories. They monitor their weight, body fat, water weight, and bone density. They run in only a certain kind of shoe. They have limited social lives because running, training, eating, and sleeping dominate their days. Their training schedule is the paradigm into which all of life’s activities fit. Their conversations and their daily decisions reflect their mission. When planning and executing their lives, everything flows through the grid of training.
When asked what he would be doing if he weren’t a runner, one marathoner from Kenya laughed and said, “I don’t know. For me, running is everything.” I urge you to read the following five points about Scripture with that perspective so you can say, “For me, the Word of God is everything. It informs all my decisions and values. I arrange my life around its principles. I study it consistently to reinforce my life goals. I consult it before I make plans or decisions. What the Bible says takes precedence over whatever anyone else says. It is, after all, God’s Word.”
Scripture is my weapon of choice in the fight against the fear of defeat. As we seek courage to conquer the giants in our lives, we need to make our top priority the Word of God.
Talk about the Word Constantly
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth.
Let’s clarify what Joshua would have understood to be the “Book of the Law.” For him it was the first five books of our Bible —the Pentateuch, as that collection of books is called. Nothing more of Scripture had yet been written. God told Joshua that this book was to be his plan of action. He was to take this book in his hands and commit it to his heart. It was the key to his ability to accomplish the assignment God was giving him.
The Book of the Law was also to be the topic of his conversation with others —not talking about it as we would a novel or a biography, but allowing the law of God to inform, guide, and temper all conversations and deliberations. Later in the book, we see Joshua doing that very thing:
Afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel.
Part of what Joshua would have read to the people was the passage in Deuteronomy 6:6-9, Moses’ instructions to parents about how to weave the Word of God into their children’s lives: “You . . . shall talk of [God’s words] when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” (verse 7).
Notice the word talk. God’s words, commands, and statutes —His perspective on everything —were to be embedded in every family conversation. Children would grow up with God’s law deeply entrenched in their very thinking.
The Deuteronomy passage also uses a figure of speech that involves making a point by giving opposites: when you’re in the house, when you’re outside; when you’re lying down, when you’re up and about; when you’re sitting, when you’re standing. The idea is that we teach the law all the time —now, then, and every moment in between.
God’s law should live on the tongue. There is no inappropriate time for sharing it, and we should be as driven to discuss it as a bird is to sing. The Lord provides all the various venues of life —relaxed family time, outdoor chores, coming-of-age milestones —for discussing the law in every context. Think what would happen today if Christians, instead of discussing politics, TV shows, movies, sports, and traffic, started talking more about the Word of God!
“What did you learn from the Word today?”
“Before we discuss our plans, let’s see what counsel we can find in the Bible.”
Wouldn’t that be a refreshing way to live? Wouldn’t it be a powerful step in putting our hope in Christ and conquering our fears and failings?
Meditate on the Word Continually
You shall meditate in it day and night.
The very idea of meditation seems countercultural. We don’t like anything slow or deliberate, and we particularly hate the idea of quiet. We like things to be fast paced. We like more action and less reflection. We like 140-character tweets instead of in-depth information.
But meditation —biblical meditation, not the emptying of the mind featured in Eastern religions —is central to the life to which God calls us. It requires that we give up our hurry and listen quietly and deeply to what God has to say. J. I. Packer describes the right way to do it:
Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God.
Its purpose is to . . . let his truth make its full and proper impact on one’s mind and heart. . . . It is, indeed, often a matter of arguing with oneself, reasoning oneself out of moods of doubt and unbelief into a clear apprehension of God’s power and grace.[7]
Like a cow that chews the same grass over and over to digest it and benefit from it, we meditate on the Word of God by going over and over it in a way that allows God to speak to our hearts and quiet our fears.
Meditation is preventive maintenance for the mind. We fill every corner of our thinking with rich, eternal truth before the errors of the world can take root there and infect us. We live in this world, and we’ll be exposed to all that is wrong about it. But we can make ourselves resistant to the virus of false ideas. Meditating on God’s Word is inoculation against “every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14).
David understood the power of meditation. He wrote,
Oh, how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies;
For they are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the ancients,
Because I keep Your precepts.
Try meditating each day on Philippians 4:13, which reads, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Think about how much more resistant you’d be to the insidious whispers that say, Give up —you can’t do this; God isn’t going to help you. The implanted Word is a bulwark against the lies of the evil one.
Whichever of those two messages touches your soul most frequently —the voice of courage or the voice of defeat —that’s the one that wins the battle for your mind.
Read the Word Obediently
. . . that you may observe to do according to all that is written in [the Book of the Law].
Notice the phrase observe to do in this passage. It’s easy to pass over these three words as negligible, but in reality they present one of the great concepts of the Old Testament. We are not to read the Bible for information only or just to increase our knowledge. We are to study the Bible to discover God’s will for our lives. We observe in order to do. We observe the Bible in order to obey the Bible.
One of the most subtle and dangerous errors we can fall into is to view the Bible simply as interesting reading. Yes, it’s timeless literature —fascinating, entertaining, and moving. But at all times the Word of God is no mere book. It’s meant to change who we are and how we live. The Bible’s message can’t simply stop with the mind; it must go on to the heart and the will. We are to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).
When we fear living counterculturally as God’s light in the world, obedience is the single key to banishing the fear. Disobey, and fear remains. Obey, and fear departs. The role of the Word of God is to tell us what to do. But courage is only realized when we obey.
Follow the Word Exclusively
Do not turn from [the Book of the Law] to the right hand or to the left.
The phrase zero tolerance entered our common language after 1994 legislation outlawed bringing firearms to school. There would be no tolerance for a violation of that decree. Expulsion for one year would follow, and if the school failed to comply, it could lose its federal funding. Zero tolerance meant a strict, clear-cut policy banning guns in schools. The phrase caught on, and soon we were discussing other areas that deserved zero tolerance: bullying, cheating, dealing drugs.
The term didn’t exist in Joshua’s day, but as the passage above shows, its application did. God gave Joshua a zero-tolerance policy concerning spiritual infidelity, telling him that when Israel entered Canaan, he was to follow the Word of God without turning “to the right hand or to the left.”
He wasn’t to compromise morality or principles to conform to the practices of the land’s inhabitants. He wasn’t to massage the meaning of God’s law to make it politically correct. He wasn’t to use it as a proof text for his own point of view. He was to obey God’s law and nothing else.
At the heart of the law was the covenant, the agreement between God and His people. It would not change; a new generation must hold to old revelation. In a time of uncertainty, facing a new world, this would be their assurance: Nothing important has changed. I, the Lord, do not change. Keep following Me.
We know the history that followed. The people of Israel took many steps to the left and to the right. God was patient and forgiving, but finally the nation had to suffer for its lack of faithfulness to God and His law. The nation split in two. Its people were exiled first to Assyria, then to Babylon. The Israelites paid the price, living in constant fear of enemies and invasions. They turned to the right hand and the left to serve other gods, and eventually their fears were realized when God removed His umbrella of protection.
We have a choice: we can follow the gods of this world and live with the fear that we’ll be caught in the outcomes that inevitably fall on all disobedience, or we can follow God and His Word exclusively and live without fear.
Accept the Word Totally
. . . all that is written in it.
Sometimes people ask me why I preach from the Old Testament. Nearly everyone likes the Gospels of Jesus and the letters of the apostles. But why worry about all those wars and kings and prophets?
There is good reason. I include the Old Testament in my teaching because God’s message is incomplete without it. Theology recognizes two kinds of inspiration of Scripture: verbal inspiration means that the words were inspired by God; plenary or full inspiration means that all of the Bible comes directly from God. We believe, then, that every word of the Scriptures has God as its source. This is reflected in Joshua 1:8, where the word all takes center stage. We aren’t to pick and choose from God’s law any more than we are to pick and choose what federal laws we obey.
Did Joshua listen? Many years later, when he was nearing death, he gave his final address to the people of Israel, now established in the Promised Land. He echoed the words that were given to him many years earlier by God: “Be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left” (Joshua 23:6).
In Deuteronomy 17:18-19, God made deep immersion in His law the first priority for Israel’s future kings. No doubt this is why David, nearing the end of his life, prepared his son Solomon for accession to kingship with words that echoed God’s charge to Joshua:
I go the way of all the earth; be strong, therefore, and prove yourself a man. And keep the charge of the LORD your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.
It is no small thing that God called Joshua to the Word as he stood on the banks of the Jordan. Those who desire to do anything for God and experience the richness He desires for them must be people of the Word.
The “spiritual greats” of our times have made the Word a first priority. Some pastors, leaders, teachers, and laymen have read through the Bible more than a hundred times. It is said that George Müller read it two hundred times. Missionary David Livingston read it four times in succession while he was detained in a jungle town. Charles Spurgeon said, “A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who is not.”
The Bible is the greatest source of encouragement available today. When we read it, we are changed because it is a living book. Whenever we are afraid of failure or feel as if we are failures, the Word of God should be our highest priority. The words we find there will infuse our hearts and minds with strength and courage. The more we focus on God and His Word, the less room there will be for fear.
The Principle of Divine Presence
I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. . . . The LORD your God is with you wherever you go.
Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the similarities in the call narratives of the Old Testament —the challenge from heaven, the fear from earth, the reaffirmation and assurance from God. There’s one other key element: God’s consistent promise to accompany us on the journey. He never says, “You go, and I’ll wait here for you.” He says, “Let’s go.”
- God said to Moses: “I will certainly be with you. . . . Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say” (Exodus 3:12; 4:12).
- To Gideon: “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man” (Judges 6:16).
- To Jeremiah: “‘Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,’ says the LORD. . . . ‘For I am with you,’ says the LORD, ‘to deliver you’” (Jeremiah 1:8, 19).
- And to Joshua: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5).
For forty years, Joshua had witnessed God’s faithful presence with his mentor, Moses. Now God promised Joshua that he, too, would be blessed by the presence of God in his life and leadership.
Nothing is more important, or more confidence boosting, in the call of God than the promise that God will be with us. God’s promise of His active presence and power always accompanies every person He calls. This renders meaningless any excuse or objection to the call. Whether the person called feels inadequate or incapable becomes irrelevant, because he carries with him God’s power to accomplish what God calls him to do.
In the New Testament, God makes the same promise to us that He made to His Old Testament saints:
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say:
“The LORD is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?”
The Principle of Divine Prosperity
You will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
This is undoubtedly one of the boldest promises in the entire Bible. To most people today, success means the accomplishment of goals and financial achievement. In the Hebrew language, however, it means to be prudent or to act circumspectly. In a spiritual sense, this means letting one’s life be guided by God. Joshua had this kind of success and prosperity. He ran into his share of bumps in the road, and he had his failures. But the great scope of his life indicated prudence and wisdom, and he was a successful man.
Now picture this with me: Joshua learns that his new job assignment is to lead these nomadic people against the Canaanites. It’s a great promotion, but he fears it’s too much for him. Filled with anxiety, he goes into the Divine Consultant’s office, where he is given these six principles to overcome his fear of failure and guarantee his success. He walks out standing straight and tall, with a confident spring in his step. He has received a transfusion of courage.
As Joshua came to the end of his life, he gave testimony to the power of these principles to bring prosperity and success to his nation:
Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed.
I know these principles work, because I have made them the core principles for my own walk with God. On many occasions when I’ve faced the challenges of ministry, these powerful words have given me the shot of courage I needed to push on and find the success God promises. As I write this chapter, I am reminded of the times when I was most afraid of failure. The first was my last year in seminary. I had spent four years in college and four years in graduate seminary training, and within weeks I would have to step out of that comfort zone into the real world. I remember thinking, I wonder if I’ll be able to do this. What if I’m just not cut out for the ministry?
My first assignment after graduating was to serve as a youth pastor and Christian education director at a large church in New Jersey. Those were great days for Donna and me. We hung out with the high school kids day and night, and God gave us the privilege of mentoring some of the greatest young people we had ever met. We still hear from some of them to this day.
During the last months of our second year in New Jersey, I began to feel a growing desire to preach. My few preaching opportunities made me eager to do more. We didn’t have to wait long for that desire to be met. A longtime pastor friend was building a network of churches in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Out of the blue, he called me to ask if I would have any interest in becoming the pastor of their newest church plant.
With many reservations, Donna and I agreed to visit the church. I would preach in the mother church and then meet with the seven families who had agreed to help start this new work. I was pretty certain that God did not want me to do this, but I felt obligated to listen to their proposal.
As we traveled home afterward, we were both overwhelmed with the faith and excitement of this core group of people. And we were shocked that they wanted us to come to lead them in this venture of faith. They gave us a couple of weeks to make our decision, and we ended up taking every single day! As the deadline drew near, I was conflicted. Looking back, I now realize that a big part of my indecision was the fear that I would not be able to accomplish what they wanted me to do. What if we went to Indiana and failed to make the new church a success?
Other issues also clouded my mind. During our visit, I had driven around the area where this church was to be planted, and I counted at least five well-established churches. And I was to be the pastor of seven families meeting in a mobile home! That’s right —a mobile home. One of the core members of the new church sold mobile homes, and he had agreed to assemble four of them into an L-shaped arrangement that resulted in an “auditorium” that would seat one hundred people, with the other section housing a nursery, a few classrooms, and a small office.
If you were driving around Fort Wayne, Indiana, looking for a new church home, would you have chosen the mobile home church over one of the five beautiful churches in our part of town? Neither would I! The fear of failure was palpable, and I knew how to get rid of it —stay right where we were in an established, comfortable church.
With only a few days left before the deadline, I drove to the New Jersey shore to spend the day thinking and praying. It was colder than I’d anticipated, so I popped into a coffee shop on the boardwalk to get warm. I took my coffee and a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer to a booth and settled in —and began reading a story that changed our lives.
It was an article about Vince Lombardi, the fabled coach of the Green Bay Packers. He had just left Wisconsin to become head coach of the struggling Washington Redskins. It was the talk of the sports world: Why would Lombardi leave his spectacularly successful franchise in Green Bay and move to what was then the worst franchise in the NFL? What caught my attention was a line in the middle of the article —a pullout quote from the coach set in bold type: “I have discovered in my life that it is more challenging to build than to maintain.”
I finished my coffee, drove the hour back to Haddon Heights, and told Donna that we were moving to Fort Wayne. God had vanquished my fear of failure —for the moment.
The fear returned as we spent the next few weeks preparing our transition to Indiana. I believed God had spoken to me that day at the Jersey Shore, but I was still nervous and afraid —until we arrived. When we walked into the little house where we would live, we saw a sign taped on a kitchen cabinet door:
GOD’S COMMANDMENTS ARE GOD’S ENABLEMENTS.
To this day, I don’t know who put the sign there, but I believe God moved them to do it. It suddenly dawned on me: God wouldn’t tell me to do something that He wouldn’t enable me to accomplish! Why should I be afraid if God had committed Himself to my success? What God did for Moses, Gideon, Jeremiah, Joshua, and others, He would do for me. And He did. For twelve years, God patiently helped me learn to be a pastor and caused the church to grow. When we left Fort Wayne, God had proved to Donna and me that the only way we learn to trust Him is to step out of our comfort zones into the “fear zone” and say yes to Him.
If you are in a similar place today, may I encourage you to replace your fear of the unknown with hope in God and His Word? If there is something God wants you to do, let your actions put your fear to flight.