Joshua
Joshua
The Leader Who Stopped Asking
Has a string of wins ever made you stop double-checking your decisions? Joshua's story shows how confidence built on real victories can quietly become a reason to stop consulting God.
Who Was Joshua
Joshua served as Moses' assistant for 40 years before inheriting leadership of the entire nation. He led Israel across the Jordan and through the conquest of Canaan, starting with the dramatic fall of Jericho.
The Positive: Courage and Decisive Obedience
As Joshua takes over, God's charge to him is blunt and repeated three times in one chapter — be strong and courageous. Joshua takes it seriously. At Jericho, he leads Israel through an obedience that made no military sense: marching around a walled city in silence for six days, then shouting on the seventh.
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)
That combination — courage plus precise obedience to unusual instructions — is exactly what carried Israel through the early conquest.
The Negative: The Treaty He Never Prayed About
Shortly after, a group called the Gibeonites shows up disguised as weary travelers from a distant land, tricking Israel into a peace treaty. The text is specific about exactly what went wrong.
"The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord." (Joshua 9:14)
Joshua and the leaders trusted their own read of the situation — reasonable-looking evidence — and skipped the one step that had carried them through every previous battle: asking God first. Israel ends up bound by an oath to people God had told them to remove from the land, a consequence they live with for generations.
Why This Matters
Notice the pattern: this happens right after Jericho and Ai, two major victories. Success is often exactly when leaders feel most qualified to trust their own judgment.
The Principle
Past success can create a shortcut around discernment — winning is not the same as being right, and it should never replace seeking counsel.
The more track record a leader builds, the more tempting it becomes to trust instinct over inquiry. Joshua's failure wasn't a crisis of courage — he had plenty of that. It was a quiet skipping of a habit that had never failed him before. Practically, this means building an ongoing habit of prayer and outside counsel into your rhythm regardless of how your last few decisions turned out, not just when you feel unsure.
How This Shows Up Today
Every leader eventually experiences a string of wins that quietly change how they make decisions. A pastor whose last three building projects went smoothly starts skipping the planning team's review. A business owner whose gut instincts have paid off starts skipping due diligence on a deal that looks too good. None of this looks like rebellion in the moment — it looks like earned confidence. But Joshua's story is a reminder that confidence without inquiry eventually meets a Gibeonite: something crafted to look exactly like what wisdom would have caught, if only someone had asked.
Questions
• Where has a recent success made you feel like you no longer need to "inquire of the Lord" before deciding?
• What decisions have you made recently based on how something looked rather than asking for wisdom first?
• Who in your life plays the role of a check on your decisions, and are you still listening to them?
Take Action:
• Look back at a recent decision you made quickly because of past success. Did you pray about it or seek counsel first?
• Before your next significant decision this month, commit to asking at least one trusted person's opinion before acting on it.
• Write down one area where you've been coasting on past wins instead of staying alert and dependent on God.
• Build a simple habit — a checklist, a standing meeting, a set of questions — that forces you to seek counsel before major decisions, regardless of how confident you feel.
• Reflect on and write down two of your best decisions and two of your worst. What role did seeking counsel, or not, play in each?
The Conversation:
• Ask your mentor how they've been "tricked" by something that looked right but wasn't — professionally or spiritually.
• Discuss how your mentor maintains the discipline of seeking God's guidance even after a long track record of good decisions.
• Ask for an example of a time your mentor skipped counsel and later regretted it.
• Ask your mentor what process they use to slow themselves down before big decisions, even when they feel certain.
• Talk about how your mentor discerns the difference between confident faith and simply trusting their own judgment too much.