thirty-one kings

Joshua conquered thirty-one kings in just a few short days. Let the scholars correct me, but I like to think of it as thirty-one kings in thirty-one days... A lifetime of wars started and finished within a single month. Vast multitudes of enemy forces, mostly taken without a single casualty. The heavens rained down bullets in the form of hail. The sun and the moon even cooperated with the campaign. What a month that must have been. Thirty-one kings in thirty-one days... Those kings had no chance. It's recorded that God wanted to "destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy."

Throughout the years preceding this historic month, Joshua had been repeatedly admonished to "be strong and courageous." Still, I can imagine how a month like that would have solidified the concept in his mind. Such drama. The stuff of summer blockbusters. The armies of five kingdoms completely slaughtered with their kings sequestered off in a cave... At the end of the day, the kings are dragged out from their pitiful hiding place and the army commanders place their feet on the royal necks of these cowards. Joshua exterminates the five kings with five decisive blows of his sword while authoritatively proclaiming between hacks his lessons learned: "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight."

As with all of life, such inspiration is precisely the prescription for fighting my own battles. Now, granted: bills to pay, loneliness to endure, relationships to restore, and disappointments to overcome are not so graphic as mass slaughter of flesh-and-blood enemies. But such battles can seem just as impossible. Thirty-one kings seems like an impossible task... But then again, now that I look down at my hands I can see that my sword is drawn and, well, I've got some hacking to do.