Humble Joshua

Joshua 14
10 “Now, as you can see, the Lord has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise—even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five years old. 11 I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. 12 So give me the hill country that the Lord promised me. You will remember that as scouts we found the descendants of Anak living there in great, walled towns. But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.”

I love Joshua’s humility here. What, you say? Humility? Bragging that at the age of 85, he can still kick some pagan booty? No, look at the last line in verse 12 again. “But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.” This is the same Joshua who encountered the angel of God outside of Jericho years earlier and was promptly told that the angel was not on anyone’s side but God’s. Joshua has lived his life that way as well. He doesn’t assume that God is on his side, he simply wants to give the credit, the glory and the honor to God no matter what. Yeah, I need to be more like Joshua in this regard.