All At Once

“Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it.” (Jos 10:5 AV)

Just because a bunch of enemies show up all at the same times does not mean it is a bad thing.  In our passage, five kings decided to gang up on Joshua and Israel.  They had heard that Gibeon had surrendered to Joshua.  This concerned them because Gibeon was a royal city.  If Israel could intimidate Gibeon, they Israel could intimidate all.  Their thinking was to chasten Gibeon so that no other city would think to do the same.  They made a league between the five of them and came up against Gibeon and Israel.  From Joshua’s point of view, this may have seemed a bit overwhelming.  In my humble opinion, I would have thought it would have been easier to battle five smaller cities one at a time rather than five all at once.  However, the LORD does know what He is doing and often heaps trials one upon another that we might learn a greater principle and rest in between trials.

I was in the restaurant business for about seven years.  An assistant manager at one of the busiest of all pizzerias in my home state, when it got busy, it got really busy.  There was always this debate of whether it was better to have multiple rushes with down time in between or a steady flow of orders.  The problem with a steady flow is that one was just busy enough there was no time to catch up on some of the other smaller details of filling orders.  Prep work became something you had to fit in when one could, but could never really get ahead.  Chopping vegetables, prepping puree, or grating cheese was something we were better off making a project of rather than a little bit here and there.  It was better to have rushes with down time in between.  It was better to have the dinner rush from 4-7.  Then we had about two hours to do prep work and get ready for the next rush.  Better to face the giants all at once than one at a time.  At least in some circumstances.

We have those times.  Times when it seems that trouble is just cascading.  We wish for the problems to cease.  They will.  But perhaps the LORD is asking us to face many giants all at once so that God can be strong on our behalf.  Perhaps the LORD is asking us to face many fronts all at once so that each on individually doesn’t sap away our strength, robbing us of the ability to have a vision and goals.  Perhaps a broken water main is better than a constant drip that never can be fixed.  Get it over with once and for all and claim the ground of victory that comes with it.  It wasn’t the enemies Joshua conquered that caused Israel the greatest of trouble.  It was the enemies left behind that constantly harassed them that finally wore them down.