Dangerous Thoughts

 

Today’s blog is from Joshua 7 - please read first if you don’t know the story! 

Subtitle: ‘The Accursed Thing’. 

Have you ever read this chapter and wondered: ‘what on earth was this terrible thing was that Achan - an Israelite, who had just witnessed the massive victory of the Jericho walls falling flat - had done?’ 

Verse 7 gives some really explicit details: Firstly, Achan took it. That is, the Babylonian spoils of war - abhorrent to God. Well, perhaps that doesn’t sound too deep?  Until you put it together with his next action: He stole it. But hold on a minute? If you steal something, haven’t you also taken it anyway? Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of another verse from Matt 6:25: “Therefore, take no thought about your life…” This verb, take, denotes a physical action. Thoughts are ‘offered’ to us constantly throughout the day. But it’s the ones we ‘take’ - that is to ‘pause’, ‘ponder’, or what I like to call ‘park up’ - that are the ones which will dominate our actions. Therefore, I would suggest, in order to distinguish between Achan taking the accursed thing and stealing it, that there was a protracted length of time, in which he first meditated - ‘took a thought ‘ prior to actioning it by theft. 

It probably began with what the Bible calls ‘the lust of the eye’. (1 Jn 2:16) Joshua confirms this through Achan’s own confession: 

“When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.”

‭‭Joshua‬ ‭7‬:‭21‬ ‭KJV‬‬

This intimates that his sin began with what he saw, and chose to meditate on. Have you noticed the specific details? Always pay attention to specifics in a text - it will reveal motivations for actions. Please allow me a colloquial term here to emphasise the process of Achan’s thoughts: He’s basically saying that he saw some of the Babylonian spoils of war and decided that they were ‘proper nice’. His thought would have lingered here, as he watched the gorgeous garment, along with the shekels of gold and silver. Notice the phrase: “in the midst of my tent”.  This would resonate with a Hebrew audience because they knew that the Tent of God’s Presence consisted of an inner court, an outer court and a ‘Holy of Holies - the innermost part of the tent where only the High Priest was permitted to offer an existential offering on behalf of the people. This tent also has a present day application. Our bodies are referred to as God’s temple - our spirit being the ‘Most Holy Place’ where the Holy Spirit Himself resides. The place where absolutely nobody else should go, such is the magnitude of God’s holy presence, intertwined with our real ‘person’. I hope you’re getting the significance of this! Achan’s  thoughts would have now become ‘lust’ - and now it would have been much harder for him to have simply put these thoughts back into a metaphorical ‘box’ and forget about them. They’d been unleashed and  become a stronghold in the very depths of his heart. Have you noticed that I haven’t even got to the part where he actually steals it yet? Yes, that’s how we can allow our thoughts to be corrupted by what we see. Thoughts become words become actions. Oh yes, he would certainly have had a conversation with himself about this first. That’s the way thoughts work. 

Now Look back at vs 21 above: it reveals what he did after he’d looked. And looked. And pondered. And parked. He ‘coveted them and took’. That’s what all his ‘looking’ accomplished. Lust, in any shape or form, will never be satisfied. If he had never been caught, he’d have continued until it destroyed him - and the entire Israelite camp! Think: gambling, pornography, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc.  this stage of Achan’s steady demise would have seen him in a completely consumed state of mind, so that he would now be desensitised to the fact that he was handling ‘the accursed thing’. That’s what sin does. When we ignore God’s voice, wooing us back to His heart, our hearts become hardened and we lose sensitivity to Him. 

My final point in this heartbreaking story is about what was revealed as I listened to the audio version of it. Something poignant struck me: What could the accursed thing/ things be now? The Holy Spirit’s  answer came back almost immediately: “the sin of pride - hurt egos. That is the cursed thing now”. Idols come in all forms. We often idolise ourselves – it’s called Humanism. I’m speaking specifically about God’s people here. People who ought to know better than to bury this sin amidst the foundational truths of God’s infallible word - just like Achan. What have we ‘mixed in’ with God’s word? Would you eat your favourite plate of food with even a tiny bit of excrement in it? Of course not! Why? Because it’s now contaminated. Don’t add anything to God’s holy Word to justify your own desires. God’s word is truth. It stands alone and doesn’t rely on the confusion of this world to interpret it. It answers itself. It has never failed and never will. Do not contaminate it like Achan – that’s when it will no longer be truth. 

Allow your heart to be exposed to God’s word. That’s where you will find a healing balm that will restore you more deeply than the pain from anyone who has ever hurt you. He will take your bruised, battered heart tenderly, lovingly, in His capable hands - the very same hands that made you - and make it whole. No fractures. No cracks. Just whole.

Peacebrown

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When Fathers Stay Silent

When I’m out and about, I often quietly admire young dads who I spot early in the morning pushing buggies hurriedly, or during the after school pick-up, maybe stopping by the small park near a particular school, and rambling with their little ones. These are images of fathers which are seldom presented in society - but they’re definitely there. 

I do become very nostalgic, thinking back to my own late husband’s beautiful examples of fatherhood - images surge of him chasing my eldest daughter around the park whilst she screamed with glee. A heartwarming memory! But that alone isn’t what made him such an excellent father and husband. This was achieved by following godly principles. Oh, don’t assume he was perfect - nobody is. But there is one area in which  he excelled above many dads who struggled - his voice was heard within the household. 

What do I mean by that? Did he holler at the top of his voice to be heard? Did he stomp around in a rage and call it ‘disciplining’ his children? No. He was one of the quietest human beings you could have met - and yet he was fully aware of his God-given authority as a father and husband. And he would conduct that authority gently and with understanding. He never raised his voice - and yet our children knew when they were being disciplined. He knew how to get down in the dirt and play hard with the children- but they always knew when playtime was over. He would lead family devotions - and encourage the ‘worship leader’ (our youngest) to bring out her toy guitar and microphones, followed by our eldest, who would ‘bring the word’. (I still have one of her earliest ‘sermons’, which she wrote - all seven lines of it! 😂). 

When the children got it wrong, he would be quick to correct. When they got it right, he was quick to praise. He was a real presence in their lives. And it’s that presence that ensured his voice was heard, cherished and obeyed. Ouch! Did I just use that very old-fashioned unspeakable word in today’s modern society? The one that’s now been written out of most marriage vows? Before you become a little prickly about it, look at the model I’ve outlined above. Many of us struggle at the thought of obeying a husband because you don’t imagine yourselves to be on the same page about absolutely everything. The good news is, when God is in it, your voice will also be heard, and most of the time you will have a real ‘peace which surpasses all understanding’ that will ‘keep your hearts and minds’ - Phil 4:7. But when that doesn’t happen - don’t assume God can’t work it out. He can and He will.  But God establishes an order within families, and you can always tell when that order has been disrupted. Just like a piece removed from the middle of a Jenga game, the whole family unit can disintegrate and become dysfunctional.  My focus here is on the father’s role - something rarely focused on. There  are indeed other considerations to be had.

Let me present you with a biblical model of this. Now I love those Bible animations on YouTube - I consume them regularly and absolutely love them! I watched one recently about the harrowing story of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter. Now I’ve read this story a few times over many years - a story of the sexual abuse of  Dinah, with a devastating impact on a whole nation, who were slaughtered because of it. (You can read the full story in Gen 34). I’ve always been disgusted by the sheer depravity of Shechem, the rapist, a man of wealth and power - and zero self-control. However, the Holy Spirit highlighted a crucial lesson to be learned. Where was Jacob’s voice? Jacob and his family had only recently come to settle in the land. He had only one daughter, who he should have protected diligently, in a patriarchal society, as things were back then.  Very telling, is Jacob’s response, when he heard about his daughter’s abuse. Verse 5 of Genesis 34 states: ‘and Jacob held his peace until they (his sons) came home’. Why did he do this? His daughter had been utterly ravaged …and he said nothing? Again, verse 13 states: ‘ and the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamir…’ revealing that Jacob was yet again, silent. He was leaving the discourse of such a life-altering topic, which would have far-reaching and permanent ramifications etched into Israel’s history, in the hands of his sons - an utter disruption to God’s divine order. You can perhaps see now how Dinah,  was left without the protection she ought to have been afforded by her father. I certainly hadn’t seen this before.

The Bible does not shy away from such uncomfortable topics. It is more than a book, it is alive and speaks still to us today. It says: “Where is the father‘s voice?” 

If you are reading this, you certainly don’t have to agree with all I’ve said… But what you absolutely must do, is agree with what the Word of God says - it’s never wrong. The evidence is before us: The chaos that ensues wherever fathers remove themselves from their God given responsibilities, or even if they are present and they remove their voices. Fathers, I appeal to you, follow these biblical principles. Mothers, daughters, sons and brothers, I appeal to you also: know your godly place within the family - allow fathers to be heard - do not disrupt God’s divine line of authority.

By no means is this  “happily ever after” advice, but over time it will certainly make for a more peaceful household, step by humble step.

Thanks for reading - please comment and share!

Peacebrown