Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Art of Trusting | Historical Books | Joshua 5:1-9

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Is it hard for you to trust? Are you waiting for God to provide? Where in your life is God asking you to trust him? In today's episode, Jensen shares how Joshua 5:1-9 reminds us that God's promises are worth trusting. Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Joshua 5:1-9

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Have you ever done the trustfall exercise? You know, where you stand in front of another person and fall backwards into their arms, trusting that they'll catch you? Or maybe like me, you went to a team-building retreat at some point in your life. Mine was in middle school. And to build trust with your classmates, they had you stand on an elevated platform and fall backwards in. to the arms of about six of your classmates. Now, in middle school, I had already had my growth

spurt and had a good six inches on almost every boy in my class. I did not have faith in my fellow five-foot classmates' ability to catch me off this elevated platform, and so I hid in the bathroom during that portion of the exercise. The task was too big, too risky for me to partake in the trust fall. Maybe you're a better person than I am. But whether it's a normal trust fall, or an elevated trust fall, or depending on a coworker to accomplish a task in time for the deadline. We all know what it's like to have to put your trust in other people, to trust their word, to be dependent on them and their abilities. And it can be scary sometimes. See, our whole lives are built around trust. I trust that the person next to me won't randomly ram their car into mine just for fun.

I trust that the stoplights I follow are working properly to ensure my safety. I trust that my seatbelt will keep me safe in an accident, that my breaks will work when I press on them. I trust that my husband loves me when he has to tell me hard truths. I trust that my friends will keep my confidence when I go to them for advice and wisdom. I cannot function in this world without exercising some amount of trust throughout my day. But that doesn't make those big moments of trust any easier. The falling off an elevated platform, the giving trust back to a friend, who has hurt you before, a spouse who has betrayed you, the trusting in a God you cannot see to be

faithful to promises that seem too big to deliver on. In Joshua 5, the Israelites have finally stepped foot in the promised land. God has just delivered them miraculously over the Jordan River, and as their feet touch the soil of the promised land, they find themselves living in tension. They're in the promised land, but it's not their land. It's still full of a people that call it home, a people that live differently than them, that worship different gods, people who are powerful, who scared the first spies who ever scouted the land. They know the promise that God has made to them. They can see glimpses of it as he performs miracles in front of them, but they're still not fully safe, fully home.

Now in some ways their experience mirrors ours. We have a promise from God. When Jesus rose from the grave and then later ascended into heaven, he promised to come back, to rule as king over this earth, to transform it, to set it free from the bondage of sin and slavery that it's under. To redeem creation, to redeem humanity, our bodies and our minds to give us new life and to live alongside us, to build us a kingdom that is ruled by love, justice and mercy, one where there isn't death or crying, where the enemy has been destroyed and peace rules over the earth. That is the promise that we live under. And yet, we wait. Jesus has already accomplished our freedom. He's paid the price for our sin when he died on the cross and rose from the grave, but we don't fully live in his kingdom yet. We await his return

for the full redemption of creation. Already, but not yet. We do not yet live in safety. We are not fully home, but we have a promise and a call to trust in our God. The Israelites had those things as well, and in the first few verses of Chapter 5, we, the readers, are let in on some behind-the-scenes information that they wouldn't have known at the time, but it gives us encouragement of God's power. Verse 1. Now, when all the Amarite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast, heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over. Their hearts melted in fear, and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

So these kings, the ones that had the Israelites trembling in fear 40 years earlier, the powerful kings, the great and mighty people, they are the ones who are left in fear without courage when they hear about the God of the Israelites. See, God is already at work. He's setting the stage. He's protecting his people. He's ensuring their safety even when they can't see it, even when they don't know about it. And then he makes a request of his people. At that time, the Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again. Okay, so remember, the Israelites are in the promised land, but it's not theirs yet. It's full of enemies and powerful people who would not see their presence kindly. They're the outsiders, the unwanted, the vulnerable people without a home, and God asks them to weaken themselves.

It may sound barbaric to circumcise grown men, but in those days circumcision was a sign of God's covenant with his people. They were supposed to have been circumcised as babies, but the next few verses tell us that during their time in the wilderness, the older generation had not circumcised their young. But now this generation, the generation who would take hold of the promised land, had to be circumcised. They had to be in a covenant relationship with God. They would be His people and He would be their God, protecting them, caring for them, delivering them into his promises. God's not only asking them to go through an incredible amount of pain. He's also asking them to make something that might not have seemed like a wise decision from a safety standpoint.

See, the young men who were to be circumstized were their fighting men, their physical protectors, the ones who would defend them from attack, who would lead the charge upon taking the promised land. And God was asking them to render themselves incapable of action, to weaken themselves, to make themselves vulnerable to attack. Can you imagine the questions? Really, God? Right now. Maybe we could wait, conquer the land and then do the thing.

No? But God was asking them to trust him. He knew he would protect them. He knew the Amarite and Canaanite kings already feared them. He knew he had already provided. Now, God was asking his people to trust him, to believe that he would be absolutely faithful to the promise he had made them.

Would they trust him? Or would they cower in fear like their parents had? doubt God's ability to deliver them, to protect them, to be faithful. Verse 3 and 8. So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites. And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed. Obedience, trust, faith, even when the request seemed crazy, dangerous even. And the Lord protected them.

He kept them safe while they healed. He knew the importance of being his covenant people as they walked into the promised land. He knew that the people needed to know they could trust him. He knew they would be asked to do crazy, hard, impossible things to enter into this land. He knew they needed to remember that their God was faithful, that he was at work, that he was with them, and that they were his chosen people. Where in your life does it feel crazy to trust God, to believe his promises? Where is it hard to believe that his kingdom is better than the kingdoms the world tries to get us to build? Maybe God is asking you to trust him instead of trying to climb the corporate ladder of success. Is God asking you to give generously to those in need even if it feels like it leaves you vulnerable? Is God asking you to believe in his vision for marriage and sexuality even when it makes you an outcast in your social circles? Is God asking you to meet those on the other side of the political aisle with love and peace, even if it means you don't win an argument? You live in a messy

world that isn't fully redeemed yet. You live in a world full of tension that requires your complete and total trust in God in order to remain faithful. You have to trust that God is better, that his kingdom is worth waiting for, worth fighting for, worth building today. Now, it may seem crazy sometimes. It may seem like your life is getting harder. It's getting trickier, more painful. But your God has made a promise to you that he will be faithful. You will live alongside him in his good and wonderful kingdom one day. You will live in a redeemed body on a redeemed earth with a good and generous king. Your God will dwell among his people once again.

Our promised kingdom is coming. Will you trust God today in the tension, in the mess, in the pain, knowing that he is at work? He is on the move. He will deliver his people into his promised kingdom. Put your trust in your king and let it move you to obedience today and every day.