Holding the Javelin

UV 945/10,000 Holding the Javelin Then the Lord said to Joshua, “ Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand, for into your hand, I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out his javelin towards Ai.” Joshua 8 v 18 We are to hold the javelin in our hand but not throw it. It implies that we should hold the Word of God and the promises of God in our hands like a javelin. We should not throw the javelin but only hold it firmly in our hands. We only need to point it towards our target or goal and the Lord will cause it to happen just as the Lord delivered Ai city into the hands of the Israelites. Day after day when we proclaim the Word of God and His promises to His people, we are holding the javelin in our hands. The Lord will perform His purpose and accomplish His salvation. The promises of God assures us of victory, success, blessings, deliverance, healing, forgiveness. We need to have a firm hold on these promises. We should not just read the promises and forget them. Holding the javelin implies finding the apt promise, praying to claim it in one’s situation, recalling it from time to time and affirming our faith that it will prove both true and sufficient for our need. When we forget the promises of God it shows we do not believe His words, that we are not taking seriously His promises. It requires a firm grip to hold a javelin in one’s hands. It takes an accurate sense of aiming to hold it firmly in the direction of our goals. Likewise, we should remember every word of every promise we wish to claim for ourselves. A javelin helps to scale great heights. It enables us to fling ourselves over great obstacles in our paths. Just as we grip the javelin firmly, we need to aim it in one direction and accurately. We need to be precise and specific in claiming the promises of the Lord in the areas of our challenges. There are said to be 10,000 promises of God in the Bible. If we live an average of 30,000 days(82 years), we have roughly three days ( equal to the death-Resurrection cycle of Jesus) to test and taste the reality of each promise in the course of our lives. The promises of God cater to the entire gamut of emotions we experience in life- fear, guilt, sadness, joy, astonishment, compassion, hatred, ambition, regret, hope, dismay, love, pride, shame, self pity and so on. These emotions also have different nuances. For instance, physical danger evokes a different kind of fear as against a risk of being dishonoured or put to shame. Fear of death and fear of judgement after death are two different kinds of fear that requires two different promises of God to deal with it. We can claim the promises of God in the variety of situations and challenges we confront in our lives. When we claim specifically the promise of God and point it precisely like Joshua’s javelin in the direction of the challenge we are currently facing, we will find miraculous resolution over time. Prateep V Philip