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Repeat?

             Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. (Joshua 2:1)

Really? Forty years earlier, God told Moses to send twelve spies into the Promised Land. Joshua was among them, and they came back with a report that led the people into rebellion. The result was forty years of wandering (seemingly) aimlessly while waiting for people to die. Now Joshua was repeating the exercise?  He only sent two, but I wonder whether he spent the whole time they were gone wondering what he would do if they came back with a bad report. Perhaps before they left, he told them that if they came back with that bad report – without sufficient evidence – that he’d have them executed. Did he consider not sending out scouts? The problem with that is that sending scouts was probably a standard battle tactic. Not sending them would have marked him as incompetent.

Have you done something and failed miserably? Have you noticed that God sometimes seems to like to give second chances. Another one that comes to mind is Peter’s denials of Christ with the parallel confessions of his love for Christ. His screw up didn’t mean he was put on a shelf, sidelined, or otherwise rejected. This isn’t to say that there aren’t consequences when we err or sin. But if we don’t come back to something that has eaten our lunch, we can’t ever know that we have gained the strength to protect said meal or that He will help us if we ask.

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