And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, ‘go view the land, even Jericho’. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house named Rahab, and lodged there (Josh 2:1). God had told Joshua to go out and get the land and divide it for an inheritance. Joshua did not just sit down and expect things to happen without meditating to bring out the required strategies for success. God is present with us; all those things that are within our hearts, can and will come to pass if we can only grasp the discipline of bringing out our strategy from the Word of God on how we can make our way prosperous. The potential energy of God which is ours will be converted as we meditate on the Word to become active and living power in our lives. (Hebrews 4:12a)

Joshua first sent out spies to go and view the land like Moses. Many people get involved in projects with the God consciousness, but without the proper picture of the entire thing. This  means, when you ask people penetrating questions about the proposed project, i.e. the cost implications, existing challenges etc they hardly have an answer. People will simply say “God is with us”. The Bible tells us to count the costs in whatever we are going to do (Luke 14:28). What happens is that people do not have the ability to think fast and conceptualise what they want to do from the onset i.e. they cannot really look afar and determine the costs and demands of their projects. The truth about the matter is that in any project, it is never too early to prepare, never too early to have the big picture. An architect does not get involved with a project without an image; the first thing he does is to see or imagine the finished building before he starts drawing. God, at the beginning of creation saw the entire earth already created, and so He could choose the vital elements that He required and make them work.

Jesus in His teachings taught us to sit down and count the cost. (Luke 14:28 – 32) He has also warned about the tribulations we would encounter, therefore do not be surprised when you are faced with one. There will be obstacles even though God has done things on your behalf and so you must not think that He’s absent when they appear. Do not lose your peace, be of good cheer. A man who is going to get results has to look at the entire picture, spy the land and know exactly what is involved in what he is doing. You must be able to find the exact situational report to be able to face the existing reality and then them in  the face and not stay in the place of denial.

There is the principle of being courageous that one can get out of spying the land. The hearts of the people of Jericho melted when the children of Israel came in to spy the land because of the glorious things they heard that the Lord had done. (Joshua 2:9-11) They were discouraged inwardly and afraid, so they were not strong and courageous. If they were strong and courageous it would have been more difficult for the nation of Israel to have taken possession of the land.

Other times people spy the land and in the process have listened to how people started on a project and failed. These people with a history of failure now imparted that mind set by explaining the details of the failure, thereby creating in them the fear of failure or the fear of death or of things going wrong. So when God told Joshua was that he had to be strong, He meant that the element of fear had to be eliminated in his life and he had to be courageous.