Most of our teaching ideally should come when we are younger, dependent, and unable to understand some of the things we are going to face in life.  God also commands us in the Bible to “train up children” for the sake of being equipped throughout life…

The blessing of teaching children when they are young is that they are more pliable.  Though they are sinners, they have less experiences to formulate a stance, or a rigid view of the world.  In other words they are vulnerable, weak, and easily influenced for good and bad…

The children of Israel resemble this principle of God teaching them, and warning them at a time they were weak, and not sure of themselves.  They were humble enough to take direction and obey.  But as they saw God give over nation after nation “into their hands” to fulfill His purpose, they became lax in their obedience.  So the more comfortable they became, they less they saw a need to completely drive out the enemy from their territory…

The natural tendency is to relax when things seem under our control, and lose that “warrior mentality” to drive out everything we know we still struggle with.  Victories can cause pride, so God calls us to be obedient because He knows the end of all things, when we only know the present.  So our lack of obedience to drive out what He calls us to, is to pridefully disregard our ability to be overtaken.  It is then we realize that humility is more important, when we are most victorious.

In His Love, Ld