“Listening comes before doing.”

Joshua heard from the LORD that He would give Joshua victory literally every place Joshua put his foot.

All Joshua had to do was listen and follow. Notice, though, what came first – listen. You have to know what to obey before you can obey it. It’s not coming up with a to-do list; and then, asking God to bless those action steps, no matter how spiritual that process might be.

Our God not only knows the road map, but the steps needed to go down that road as well…every place Joshua was to put his foot.

God told Joshua to get the people ready to cross the Jordan. Joshua followed. God told Joshua how He wanted them to cross the Jordan. Joshua followed. He told Joshua to have the men circumcised. Joshua followed. Joshua received a very unique military strategy to defeat Jericho (Joshua 6). Joshua followed.

What comes next shows Joshua’s failure to listen led to his first failure as a leader – the city of Ai (Joshua 7).

The key point here was that Joshua listened to his military advisors and not the LORD. This failure to listen to God lead to the failure of Israel’s army and the deaths of 36 Israelis.

If Joshua had first listened, he would have heard from the LORD that there was sin the camp, Achan and his family’s sin, which unless rooted out, would lead to Israel’s defeat.

Joshua failed. After a little whining, he owned it. Sought the Lord. Got the information needed to correct it; and then, went back to victory…again and again and again.

Slow down. Listen to the Lord in His Word, in meditation, and in being still to get your daily marching orders before you head into the day’s battles.

Victory comes when we do.