And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed. – Joshua 5:8

Today's Scripture Reading (March 27, 2025): Joshua 5

If you are preparing for battle, there are certain things that you need to do. The "Boot Camp and Military Fitness Institute" lists five things to do if you are getting ready for combat duty. The first thing you need to do is undergo "Situational Awareness Training." The advice includes things that you can do in everyday life. You can play games that require you to memorize a series of items and pay attention to what is in your peripheral vision as you go about your ordinary day. I actually remember the moment that I discovered I had peripheral vision. I have no idea how old I was, I would have been very young, but I was looking at the couch in my living room and discovered that I could see the couch as well as the TV and other items placed around the sofa. I spent the rest of the day looking at things in my world and identifying all of the different things I could see out of the corners of my eyes. It was a fantastic moment for a preschool kid, and I was already getting ready for battle.

The article goes on to argue that we need to be fit, understand what we need to know to survive in the wilderness (maybe all those reality shows do have a purpose), and practice mindfulness, recognizing that battlefields are high-stress areas.

The website also recommends that you put your matters in order. The battlefield is the last place you want to be when you realize you never did get your "Last Will and Testament" completed. One of my favorite M*A*S*H episodes tells the story of Hawkeye being sent to the front to work at an aid station. There, with bombs exploding all around him, he begins to write his will. When he gets back, he immediately sets out to finish the task. It is late at night, and Corporal Klinger finds Hawkeye in the office. He welcomes Hawkeye home and then asks what he is doing. Hawkeye responds that he is finishing some paperwork. Klinger replies that the one thing he has learned as the company clerk is that there is no paperwork that can't be put off until tomorrow. Hawkeye mutters his reply: "Yeah, I used to believe that." Being at the front of the Korean War had changed something inside of the M*A*S*H surgeon. It was time to get some paperwork done before he had to confront that battlefield one more time.  

Something conspicuously missing from the "Boot Camp" list was "circumcise the army." Yet, that was what Joshua proceeded to do. It was an amazing feat that we often miss. I sometimes wonder why this wasn't done on the other side of the Jordan River. Here, they were getting ready for battle and camping close to their enemies. They had to suspect that spies were all around them searching for any weakness in the army, yet Joshua gave them a huge opening here. Every male of military age, for a few days, was incapacitated. I love Francis Schaeffer's (1912-1984) comment on this passage.

This circumcising was a strange thing for Joshua, a keen military commander, to do. He was incapacitating his whole fighting force, an absolutely unmilitary act. It is silly to march your men right into the teeth of the enemy and then disable your own people. Joshua did it, nevertheless, because God told him to." (Francis A. Schaeffer) 

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Joshua 6