I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Joshua 8-9.

    When they Gibeonites heard what the people of Israel had done to Jericho and Ai, they decided to try making a treaty with them. Knowing that the Israelites were determined to conquer the entire local territory, they made a plan to convince the Israelites that they lived a long distance from them. When the Gibeonite envoys arrived to make a treaty, the leaders of Israel did everything they could think of to determine if the Gibeonite story was true. However, they failed to take the one action which should have been their first. They failed to ask God for guidance in deciding whether or not to make a treaty with the Gibeonites. We sometimes make the same mistake when we make decisions. We look at the pros and cons of the decision and if the pros outweigh the cons we go for it. We even take into account whether it appears to be God’s will. However, that is not enough. We need to seek God’s guidance on these decisions. I am not going to try to tell you how to go about seeking God’s guidance, the way to do that varies from person to person and from situation to situation. However, I am going to tell you it is vitally important to do so. I know that I do not always do so and often regret those decisions where I did not.