Give War A Chance

As I shamelessly borrow the title of PJ O'Rourke's book for this blog post. 

Sometimes experience is not only the best teacher, it is the only teacher when it comes to learning certain things.  In this example God uses the experience of war to teach the Israelites something.

Judges 2:7(NKJV)

7So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel. 

Judges 3:1-3(NKJV)

1Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan 

2(this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it), 

3namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. 

Notice in Judges 2 that the Israelites follow God as long as all of the eye witnesses are alive but once they have all died off the Israelites start to drift off to serving other gods.  The further you get away from the miraculous events time wise, the less real it seems to the people and so the easier it is to doubt.  So what is God's solution?

The younger Israelis are going to have to learn from experience.    Many of the miraculous things that the older generation had seen were on the battlefield and so God is going to use that tool again to reach the next generation.  In this case learning from others experience just isn't getting the job done.

You know what else you really have to learn from experience?  FAITH!  That's right, faith.  Faith is like a muscle.  It has to be exercised to grow.  You start by watching your faith being fulfilled and rewarded in something small and then you have the faith the believe in something bigger.  And once you see your faith again rewarded you have faith in something even bigger.  Faith is just one of those things that you can't learn about without experiencing in my opinion.

So where do you start if you want to build your faith?  My suggestion is that you start by having faith in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.  Invite Jesus into your heart to lead you and guide you along the path that God has prepared for your life.   It's a small leap of faith but it is the most important leap of faith you will ever take. 

Are you ready?  Just have a little conversation with Jesus.  Ask Him to lead you.  "Dear Jesus…"