Negative Faith

 When it comes to life, we have to choose who and what in which we will place our faith. Faith is depending on someone or something. It is trusting in what someone says. Also, we can have faith in ourselves. We can believe that we can accomplish something. The opposite of faith is unbelief or doubt. However, I want to interject another opposite of faith I will call negative faith.

Joshua divided the land of Canaan among the tribes who were settling on the west side of the Jordan River. He distributed it by lot, and He tried to give enough land for each tribe. However, Joseph's descendants were not given enough. (Joshua 17:16) They told Joshua that the hill country was not large enough for them. However, when Joshua told them to clear the lowlands, they said that the Canaanites there had iron chariots, and they were too strong for them to defeat. I believe that is an example of negative faith.

Joshua had assured the Israelites that God was with them, and He would fight for them to take over the whole land the way they had already conquered much of the land. They had seen what God did to Jericho and many other cities. However, when it came to doing it on their own, each tribe fighting individually to drive out the pagan peoples, they did not believe they could. They said, "But, they have iron chariots." That was unbelief, but there was also negative faith.

The descendants of Joseph declared, "They are too strong for us." The negative faith was they they believed they could not defeat the people in the lowlands. They didn't pray about it. Joshua even told them they could defeat them, but they believed it was impossible for them. That, to me, is negative faith. It is believing in advance that something God wants us to do is impossible. That will always keep us from doing God's will and having what He wants us to have. I pray we will all stay away from saying, "I can't, we can't, or it is impossible." Nothing is impossible with God when it is His will for us.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Joshua 18-20.