JOSHUA 17

Ah, now the failures of Israel are coming back to bite them. By turns, before going into the Promised Land, the Lord told the Israelites that they should not make any treaties with the people living there, but that they should be completely driven out. First, God promised to drive them out Himself. When the Israelites didn’t want to go along with that (but instead wanted to fight), God told them they must destroy the nations they conquered.

Neither of those things happened.

The Israelites didn’t trust God enough to do it His way... and now they are paying for it: "The Manassites were not able to occupy these towns [of their inheritance], for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region. However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely." (vs 12-13) So, the Manassites came to Joshua and complained that they hadn’t been given enough of a land inheritance—even though their land allotment was huge and half the tribe of Manasseh received an inheritance on the other side of the Jordan River.

The reason the Manassites didn’t have enough room to live was because they had not followed God’s plan for settling the land of Canaan. They didn’t like His Plan A (to drive out the Canaanites ahead of the Israelites). And they didn’t follow His Plan B (to wipe out the nations they conquered). Thus, instead of receiving the Promised Land as God intended, they were left with the Canaanites as very close (and often very unwelcome) neighbors. That caused a lot of problems for them in the years that followed.

You know, God’s ideas are best. There are just no two ways about it. Of course, God is very patient and gracious with us when we don’t follow His ways. He will change His plan to suit our tastes time and time again, but inevitably, we can often look back and see how things would have been so much better if we had just done things God’s way.

God not only had the best ideas for the Israelites; He still has the best ideas for us. He knows what’s best when it comes to life, love, family relationships, health, wealth, entertainment, and personal contentment. And if you look around at the state of things in our world, it doesn’t take very long to see the absolute mess that results when we don’t take God’s ideas to heart.

So the next time you’re facing a decision or challenge in life, don’t forget to ask God for His ideas—and then do yourself a favor and follow them! This much is sure: you won’t find better ideas anywhere else!