“Neither,”’ he replied, ‘“but as commander of the army of the LORD I have come.”’ Then Joshua fell face down on the ground in reverence, and asked him. “‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
~ Joshua 5:14
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you have God ‘on your side’? Do you know what it means to have God ‘on your side’? When God is ‘on your side’, wonderful inexplicable things happen. Your grandmaa and grandpaa recently spent twelve days with a short term medical/dental team in Guatemala. About ten days before your grandmaa and grandpaa were to leave with the Woodmen Valley Chapel short term medical/dental team for Guatemala, the wife of the dentist who was going on this short term medical/dental team was told by her doctor that she needed to have a biopsy done on a spot that was found during a recent mammogram. Brandi was very upset about the discovery of the spot. Your grandpaa prayed with Brandi a couple of days later at a scheduled team meeting. Later – after Brandi said that she needed to go home, the rest of the guys and gals who were going on the short term medical/dental team trip to Guatemala laid hands on Brandi’s husband and prayed for him and for Brandi. When Zac got home that evening from the meeting, Zac found his wife peacefully sitting on their couch with their dogs. Zac said that he had expected to find his wife ‘ballistic’ when he got home that evening – as she had been really struggling with the news that she had gotten of the possibility the she might have breast cancer. The biopsy on the spot was scheduled to take place the day after the team meeting. When Brandi arrived at the clinic, the receiving nurse put a plastic band around her wrist. After being given another mammogram, Brandi was told to wait in the waiting room for another nurse who would then take her to where the biopsy would be done. After waiting for what seemed forever to her, Brandi said that the nurse who had put the plastic band around her wrist returned and cut the plastic band off her wrist. The nurse then showed Brandi the mammogram that had been taken a few days earlier. The mammogram had a quarter size white spot circled. This nurse then showed Brandi the mammogram that had just been taken. The quarter size white spot was gone. Because Zac – as a dentist, uses x-rays all the time, Zac said that it is impossible for an x-ray or a mammogram to lie. Zac was convinced that something wonderfully inexplicable took place for the quarter size white spot to be clearly visible on one mammogram and then not to be visible at all on the next mammogram taken just a few days later.
Zac and Brandi know that God is ‘on their side’. Your grandpaa knows that God is ‘on his side’. When your grandpaa arrived last month in Guatemala with the short term medical/dental team from Woodmen Valley Chapel, your grandpaa carelessly left his carry-on bag on the pavement at the Guatemala Aurora Airport outside waiting area. Zac went with your grandpaa when your grandpaa went to the airport after he found out that his carry-on bag was not with the team’s luggage. One of the first guys who your grandpaa saw was one of the guys who had helped load the short term medical/dental team’s luggage into one of the vans. The baggage handler was very upset with your grandpaa for having left his carry-on bag in the airport’s outside waiting area. There are always guys, gals and kids who are waiting in the outside waiting area for a plane to arrive, guys and gals who have just arrived on a plane, transients, beggars, shoe shine guys, etc. – any who could have easily walked off with your grandpaa’s unattended carry-on bag. This baggage handler had seen your grandpaa leave his carry-on bag. The guy told a policeman. After cordoning off the area around your grandpaa’s carry-on bag, the policeman checked your grandpaa’s carry-on bag for explosives. Your grandpaa’s carry-on bag could have been blown up but . . . on top of your grandpaa’s carry-on bag was a digital camera that your grandpaa had bought the day before plus his high blood pressure pills and mail for the field team missionaries were in his carry-on bag. As your grandpaa and Zac were driving back to the airport, the rest of the guys and gals who were on the Woodmen Valley Chapel short term medical/dental team were praying that . . . to not have a guy or gal take your grandpaa’s carry-on bag from where your grandpaa left it unattended at the airport in Guatemala City was a wonderful inexplicable incident that your grandpaa will never forget.
On God’s ‘side’ are battalions of angels. These battalions of angels help God’s specially elected guys, gals and kids when they need help – which as all the time. Joshua recounts in Joshua 5 how God in a wonderful, inexplicable way had the fast flowing Jordon River pile up so that the Israelite people group’s guys and gals – His specially chosen guys and gals, could cross over to the other side of the river on a dry river bed and into the land that He had told them that they would always have to live in as their very own land if . . . when the Amorite and Canaanite people groups guys – who were the bad guys who were living in the land area, heard what had taken place with the Jordon River, the guys knew that they could not win against God’s specially chosen guys. Joshua also recounted a meeting that he had as he approached Jericho. Jericho was the first city in the land that God had told his specially chosen guys and gals that they would always have to live in as their very own land if . . . with a guy with a drawn sword. Joshua asked the guy on whose side he was. Verse 14 is the guy’s response, ‘“Neither,”’ he replied, ‘“but as commander of the army of the LORD I have come.”’ Then Joshua fell face down on the ground in reverence, and asked him. “‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?”’ Joshua had forty years earlier done the right thing with a spy report after he returned from spying out the land. Moses then mentored Joshua to be the next leader over God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Joshua knew that God would always be ‘on his side’. Why do you think that God’s specially elected guys and gals today rarely take the time to ask God for His wonderful, inexplicable help?
Joshua 5 (566)