OVERCOMING FAILURE-2

There are two Bible stories or examples of where people who were apparently doing the will of God failed, and this was because of something beyond their control. They just could not understand why such a thing could have happened, because ideally they were supposed to have had the backing of heaven.
However, they later realized that somehow they had missed it because they were not all knowing, and God latter saw them through.
Joshua who replaced Moses is well known to us who read the Bible. The Lord had promised him that every piece of ground he shall set his feet upon shall be his. This clearly meant that all of his enemies had automatically lost their grounds to him.
Joshua 1:3 “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you as I said unto Moses”.
In fact the Lord said that no man shall be able to stand before him all the days of his life, again in Joshua chapter 1 verse 5.
5 “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee”.
If anybody in this world ought to have had absolute confidence in the Lord and in himself, this man was supposed to have had that confidence. He was promised good success as long as he stuck to the book of the law to observe and to do it, and he was determined to do that.
Just before trouble showed up, Joshua had everything going for him. He had just fought and defeated Jericho, supposedly the superpower of the region, with fortified walls through the power of the Lord. The Lord was really being faithful to His promises and to His word! Woo Glory Hallelujah. He was really enjoying this, and I am sure that he felt like dancing too, that is if he was not already dancing.
The next city which Joshua wanted to take was a small city named Ai, he quickly sent out men to go and spy out on Ai and bring in their report which they did. Ai is a small weak city that is nowhere near us in population, their soldiers are very few. Let some of our men relax and prepare for the stronger nations we shall meet after beating this tiny city or nation. Let us attack them with only three thousand men; we are sure to beat them. We can see this in the book of Joshua chapter 7 and verses 2-3.
7:2“And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the east of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying, ‘Go up and view the country’. And the men went up and viewed the Ai.
3 And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up; but let two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labuor thither; for they are but few”.
This clearly shows the confidence of a people that were very sure of victory. I love to add scriptures because they clearly tell you the story better than I can do with my own words. Let us proceed to verses 4 and 5.
4 “So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the men of Ai.
5 And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty-six men: for they chased them from before the gate , even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water”.
Is this not surprising, and even shocking? How could people who defeated the powerful, fortified and secure city effortlessly and by the power of the Holy Spirit fall like a pack of cards before a small, supposedly weaker country.
Why would the marriage of a mighty couple working for God, suddenly be devastated by the devil of divorce? Why would a scandal suddenly bring down a mighty and powerful ministry?
We shall still take one more example of unexpected failure, by God’s people, after which they finally found victory. We shall also look at the immediate and remote consequences of failure and how to overcome them.