Passage Read: Joshua 6-9
Meditation Verse: 6:18
Thought
Joshua knew and announced before the battle that if anyone took anything under the ban, that the whole nation would be accursed and they would bring trouble on everyone. So when they went up to Ai and were defeated, he should have known right then and there that someone had sinned. He didn't need to fall on his face, and he didn't need to mourn that God had tricked them into crossing the Jordan to die. That's why God sounds impatient in telling Joshua to find the man. The only thing Joshua needed to pray for was a method to identify the guilty party or parties. The more we know God, the more readily we should recognize when we suffer for sin. We're so quick to admit we're sinners, so we shouldn't be surprised if we suffer setbacks because of our own wrong.
Application
I've been trained to think that I'm such a sinner, so I shouldn't be surprised when I suffer trouble and seem to lack God's blessing. If I really am so much a sinner, then it should be the rare case that I suffer for righteousness' sake. Which means almost every time things go badly or fail, it should be because of some sin on my part. God can't bless me; instead, He needs to discipline me. If I search for my sin, find the problem and remove it, I should gain more and more victory over my sin, and increase the likelihood that some time in the future, I'll actually suffer for doing right rather than wrong! So when things go badly, my first response shouldn't be to question God's motives in the instructions He's given me, but to ask God to help me identify where I've sinned so as to correct it.