“Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD” (Josh 5:13-14).
As we face the battles of life, we often seek assurance that God is fighting on our side. We trust that the Lord can do all things, and no purpose of His can be thwarted (Job 42:2). That’s the kind of power we need working on our side. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).
We would shudder to think that God Himself might be working against us. Our plans are sure to fail if God opposes them. “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain” (Ps 127:1).
So, we pray that God will bless us with victory in every endeavor we pursue. We set our own plans and dreams in life without much thought to God’s will, and then we petition His approval.
While recognizing the need for God’s blessing in the battles we have chosen reflects some portion of faith and respect for the Lord, it falls short in not letting Him be the captain of our lives. We must remember that the battle belongs to the Lord and not to us (2 Chron 20:15).
When Joshua asked the captain of the Lord’s hosts whether he was fighting for them or the enemy, his answer was simply “No.” Joshua received a powerful reminder that God was not fighting for them, they were fighting for God. Upon hearing the captain’s response, Joshua “fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, ‘What has my lord to say to his servant’” (Josh 5:14).
As we approach the battles of life, we need to have the same attitude toward the Lord. The primary question we need to ask is not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on His side.
We must not seek the approval of God’s will after we have already set our personal goals for life. We must seek God’s will as the foundation for which we chose our goals in life. The secret to victory is not recruiting God as our champion, but submitting to Him as our captain.