Obstacles to God’s Promises
Have you ever faced a series of obstacles that seem to be preventing the fulfillment of God’s promises? You simply can’t understand how your circumstances fit into God’s faithfulness in light of what you’ve read in His Word. How will you ever be able to look back one day and see how God orchestrated these circumstances for your good? Perhaps, some Israelites thought the same kinds of things. And yet, here’s Joshua rehearsing God’s faithfulness at the end of the conquest:
“And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.” (Josh. 23:14)
Looking back, God fulfilled all that He had promised—not one thing failed. But along the way, Israel faced a lot of obstacles that would have seemed to have been getting in the way of God fulfilling His promises. Just read through all of difficulties the nation faced that Joshua rehearses in Joshua 24:1–13.
Let’s think about just two of those obstacles: dwelling in the wilderness for a long season and having to pass through the land of the Amorites on the other side of the Jordan. Why did they have to wait so long? And why did they have to go the long route? I remember reading a commentary long ago, which made the point that, by the end of the forty-year wandering, Egypt shifted its focus from a foreign policy of protecting the Canaanites to a domestic policy disinterested in protecting the Canaanites. Also, militarily, Israel had a greater advantage entering the land of Canaan by flanking it and dividing it in the middle than coming up from the South on the shorter route into the land. What seemed like obstacles to God’s faithful fulfillment to His promises were actually part and parcel of His plan on the way to fulfilling His promises.
Our trials may seem like obstacles when they are actually steppingstones to the fulfillment of God’s promises. And so, how should we respond to God’s sovereign faithfulness? We can be confident about our unknown future because of God’s faithfulness proven in the past. He is the same faithful God. Thus, we should be unreservedly faithful in fearing (obeying) and serving Him—without being double-minded.
“Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Josh 24:14–15).
Kevin Collins has served as a junior high youth leader in Michigan, a missionary in Singapore, a Christian School teacher in Utah, and a Bible writer for the BJU Press. He currently works for American Church Group of South Carolina.
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