Why Did You Bring Trouble on us? (Joshua 7:25)

 Why Did You Bring Trouble on us? (Joshua 7:25)

How many times, in churches and families and other organizations, has this question been pertinent: “Why Did You Bring this Trouble on us?” Someone lost sight of the big picture. Someone thought only of him/her self. Someone succumbed to temptation. Someone thought that the rules did not apply in their own case.

The question is found in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, just after the defeat of Jericho. God’s instructions had been clear: “raze the city and all the plunder was to be given to God.” In other words, don’t take anything for yourselves. There would be plenty of time and opportunity for that later.

The victory over Jericho was so easy that they thought the next town would be easier. “Let’s just send a portion of the fighting force against Ai.” And down they went, to defeat. How could this happen? How could God’s blessing, apparent at one moment, be gone the next? The answer was quite simple. There was sin in the camp. There was a troubler in Israel.

And so God directed how the guilty party was to be found. Achan was spotlighted, and he confessed. “I saw and I took,” that old pattern that still holds today. They found the loot under the floor of his tent, and then Achan and his family were buried under a pile of rocks. They called the place “Achor,” which is the Hebrew word for “trouble.” “Why did you bring this trouble on us?”

We’ve all seen it happen enough times that we must have talked to ourselves about it many times over: “Lord, don’t allow me to be the one to bring trouble to this place.” It’s not the most elevated of thoughts. It’s not aspirational. It is not the recipe for leading to greatness.

But since we are all sinners, we know that we each have the seeds in us for any number of sins. Many of those sins could be of a nature to ruin the trust that must exist for families to operate; or to ruin the public testimony of a local church; or, most importantly, to bring shame to the testimony of Christ (“look how those Christians say one thing and do another. They are no different than anyone else”).

So yes, there must be steps of faith that lead us forward, directed by God’s Spirit. And yet there are many warnings, “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.” And for all the mighty endeavors in the world that begin with fanfare and faith, it only takes one Achan, one trouble, to bring it all crashing down.