Stopping before it's too late

Although we're moving from Joshua to Judges this coming Sunday at CBC I want to go back to the story of Achan in Joshua 7. You'll remember that before the battle for Jericho the people had been instructed by God that they were not to take anything for themselves as loot or bounty, but everything was to be devoted to God. But a guy called Achan had taken some things and as a result they'd lost the next battle - at a place called Ai. You can remind yourself of the story here.

When he was confronted with his sin, Achan confessed in Joshua 7:21-22. In his confession he stated that: I saw, I coveted, I took, I hid.

How often does our sin start with something that we see? Maybe, as in the case of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), we see something that we shouldn't see in the first place  - because we're somewhere where we shouldn't have been. Or maybe it's something that we can't help seeing - as is the case here with Achan.

But after seeing our minds get to work. And rather than just shut the thought process down we let it run for a bit. We don't know what Achan thought but maybe he had already started spending the gold, maybe he imagined the robe would make a great Christmas present for his wife. But what he should have thought is - all this is to be devoted to the Lord.

No doubt a part of this thought process was about how he could conceal what he was doing and whether he was going to be able to get away with it.

Maybe he even tried to justify in his mind what he was doing. How it wasn't that serious, and that it wasn't really hurting anyone. What difference would a handful of things make in amongst such a vast horde?

Then eventually his run-away thoughts led him to action and he took. And then he tried to cover up what he had done.

And the serious consequences that followed occurred because Achan didn't shut his thought process down earlier - instead, he let it run. 

Last week on my Twitter feed an article from Care for the Family was highlighted. Although it specifically focuses on one area of life it does show how important it is to halt the see-think-do-conceal as quickly as possible so that we don't get to the 'do' stage. You can read the article here.