Now that God has brought the Israelites into the Promised Land of Canaan, it is time that they will go to war. They will fight for the land.
But that doesn’t meant that the fight will be easy. The first thing that the Israelites see? The walls of Jericho. Jericho had built a fortress and the walls around the city were tall and strong, making it nearly impenetrable. How would the Israelites possibly begin to live in the Promised Land if they weren’t able to even take the first city that they came upon?
And yet despite those challenges, God has a plan in mind. The fear of the Canaanites was justified. They had heard that God had brought them through the Red Sea, and then they saw that God had brought them across the Jordan River. Beating the Canaanties won’t be a significant challenge for a God that can stand water up and make the land underneath it dry up.
In fact, this is what God says to Joshua:
Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.
Joshua 6:2
God explains that he has delivered Jericho into Joshua’s hands. It won’t happen by the hands of Joshua, nor by the strength of the Israelite army, but the Promised Land will only become the possession of the Jews by the might of Yahweh who will deliver the land that he had promised into the hands of the Jews, conquering the Canaanites who live there.
So frequently we have challenges in our lives that create fear and anxiety, but when God goes with us, our fear is undeserved. We must follow God’s lead, staying connected to him, doing what he has called us to do, and by doing this, we will see God work, see him move in his time and in his way, and we, like the Jews and the Canaanites, will learn that he is God, the one who is sovereign and able to lead us where he desires that we will go.