They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are running away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them, you are to rise up from ambush and take the city. The LORD your God will give it into your hand. – Joshua 8:6-7

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 29, 2015): Joshua 8

We receive too much information in a day to really deal with it properly. So our brains organize the information according to the beliefs and experiences that you have had in the past. The simple reality is that if you believe in God, you will see the evidence for God all around you. If you do not believe in God, you will see evidence against God all around you. Neither are objectively true. The evidence has been carefully arranged for us by our brains to support whatever it is that we believe. And this rearrangement happens in almost every area of life. Even the doctors that we visit rely on their experience to diagnose what is wrong with us. And that is why the “second opinion” is so important. We need someone to see us from a different angle – and maybe come up with a different solution.

So in the early days after the 2015 Paris attack, we received evidence that made sense to us – Syrian refugees, or more precisely Syrian radicals who smuggled themselves in with the refugees, had pulled off the attacks. It didn’t matter that objectively that scenario didn’t really make much sense, it supported what we were afraid of in the first place – that the foreigners that we were inviting into our countries were going to turn on us and bring their brand of violence to the places that we live. It made sense and so we believed.

Since those early moments, evidence has emerged that maybe we were at least partially wrong. There may have been Syrian nationals involved, radicals who had been smuggled in with the refugees, but the main players in the attacks were European citizens. They came from France and Belgium and they owned businesses, worked and lived in Europe. They may have carried Syrian identification, but that identification may have been stolen off of dead soldiers. The whole operation may have been European in origin, but with some planted evidence to make it appear to be Syrian in origin – after all, that is what we expected in the first place. The amazing thing is that even with the mounting evidence suggesting that the origins of attack were home grown, we still fear the Syrian refugees. And the real reason is that that was what we feared before the Paris attacks – the fear did not result because of the Paris attacks.

Joshua’s plan to take Ai was built off of just this kind of tendency. Because we build our expectations in a certain direction, Joshua wanted to take advantage of that tendency (something every NFL team tries to do every Sunday). He believed that if the soldiers defending Ai saw the army of Israel in retreat, they would follow the army of Israel and leave the city unguarded. Because of Israel’ earlier defeat, an Israel in retreat was just what the soldiers of Ai expected to see. As a result, Joshua hoped that they wouldn’t think the situation through – he hoped they would just respond. Because just responding is always the easier path – it just isn’t always the right path.

Sometime responding works well for us. But there are times when we need to think things through, to see a situation from the other side. To be honest, it seems to be against our nature, but it just might be the key to finding the truth.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Joshua 9