Strategy

When we were young church-going boys, we loved the Old Testament. So many stories of war and battles and all. Of course, later it became very interesting to see the strategies employed. Many times an opponent of Israel would send overwhelming forces to wipe out this little nation only to get defeated. Then there was Israel vs Ai when Israel sent underwhelming forces because "this will be easy" and got sent packing. In the Bible, battle plans often went sideways. In the Bible, it was always because God was in charge. So it made me wonder; what about us today? We have battles today -- primarily political and social and such. Are we employing good strategies? How do our strategies compare with the Old Testament ones?

Almost without exception the one expected to win the battle in the Bible and in today's world is the one with the biggest numbers, the best weapons -- the biggest force. That was the Old Testament view, too. "We're under threat! Let's get some help ..." from Egypt or others. Ahab enlisted Jehoshaphat's aid (2 Chron 18:3). Israel went to Egypt for assistance (Isa 31:1). The Scriptures warn not to put our "trust in princes" (Psa 118:9; Psa 146:3) when clearly "princes" are the power we should enlist to help. And we do it today, don't we? We form coalitions to affect voters and public opinion. We urge people to vote the way we want to protect our rights and our freedoms. We even join with spiritual opponents who share our political views to protect ourselves from "the Left" or "socialists" or whatever other political evil is right around the corner ... or currently in our faces. It's interesting, then, that 1) we tend toward the same strategies that they did in the Old Testament stories and 2) God so often disdains those strategies.

I like some of the strategies we find in Scripture. God told Joshua to "march around the city 7 days in a row and then blow trumpets." Um ... right, God. But they did, and the results are remembered to this day. Gideon gathered a large army to fight the Midianites and ended up taking only 300 into battle at God's instructions to keep Gideon and Israel from saying, "My own power has delivered me" (Judges 7:2), and it was a rousing victory. My favorite, though was Jehoshaphat's battle plan. He heard that "A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea" and was rightly terrified, so he "turned his attention to seek the LORD" (2 Chron 20:3), him and all his people. God told him, "The battle is not yours but God's." (2 Chron 20:15). So Jehoshaphat put together his battle plan. He took his people to the place where the battle would occur. He put the choir out front. And they sang hymns and watched God annihilate the enemy (2 Chron 20:20-23).

I wonder sometimes if we couldn't pick up a few pointers from these stories. We wring our hands or get ourselves worked up into a fighting mood over all the evils and inequities and injustices we see around us. And we set up committees and form unions and prepare strategies. "This means war!" And all along God is standing by. "The battle is not yours but God's." I wonder if sometimes we might not be better off if we put the choirs out in front and worshiped God rather than fretting over our trials. Well, it's a thought. It might be difficult since we rarely use choirs anymore, right?