Good words from Nancy Leigh DeMoss...

"...it’s in the midst of trials that God provides for us opportunities to grow, opportunities to see God’s power. Those trials, those battlefield experiences, put us in a place where we most need God, where we’re desperate for Him.

"Lord, if You don’t come through, I’m not going to survive. We are going to lose. These children will never have a heart for You if it’s just up to me. I will never be able to help this person that I’ve been discipling or ministering, help them to get it. If you don’t turn on the light, Lord, I can’t deal with this situation. I can’t handle this responsibility. I need You."

You want to see God work in the most powerful ways? You’ve got to get to the place where you desperately need Him, where you can’t manage without Him, and where everything you’ve ever known and experienced prior to that point proves to be inadequate and insufficient to take you through the battle of this moment.

Our natural tendency is to want to be delivered from the battle. "I’m not ready for this! God knows that." I believe He sometimes puts us right in the battle so we can experience the supernatural power to defeat our enemies.

How do we learn to deal with temptation, with our sinful flesh, with tough relationships? You know how we learn? By having to do it, by getting thrown into it. God wants to use your trial, your battle, to train you. So don’t run from it. Don’t resent it. Don’t resist it.

By the way, let me remind you that not only do you need trials and battles to teach you, but those of you who are moms or will be someday, your children need battles and trials to learn God’s ways too. Don’t overly protect your children.

Don’t throw them into sin’s path or harm’s way. Hopefully they can learn a lot from your experience. But there are some things they are not going to learn until they are thrown into the battle, until the faith that is yours that you’ve been trying to pass on to them becomes their own.

When they get into the battle, be careful about trying to rescue them because it may be that it’s right in that situation that you, as a mom, are going, “I can’t let my child stay there.” It may be in that situation that God is going to shape a Joshua, God’s going to shape a leader.

Now what I just said—there are different ways to apply that. There are times when you ought to snatch your child out of a dangerous or an ungodly situation. That’s where you need God’s wisdom to know: “Is this a battle God is putting into this child’s life or God is allowing to happen for their good, or is this a time to intervene?”

Joshua has witnessed all that has taken place in the children of Israel from the time they left Egypt up until this point. He has seen firsthand the amazing, awesome power of God. He’s also learned—remember he’s a young man. He’s learning. He’s learned by watching Moses what a leader should do when he doesn’t know what to do. Moses was such a great teacher, such a great example for Joshua of this.

Again and again Joshua watched Moses in these desperate situations where Moses would cry out to the Lord and say, “God, I can’t handle these people. I can’t find food for them. I can’t provide water for them. God, help!” Moses cried out to the Lord. Joshua saw that. Moses humbly acknowledged his inability and asked God for wisdom, for direction, for supernatural intervention.

So Joshua, a younger man, half Moses’ age at this point, is learning dependence, dependence on the supernatural power of God, learning to lean on the everlasting arms. He’s going to realize that the battle is not man’s. The battle is not Joshua’s to win or lose, or Moses’ for that matter. The battle is the Lord’s. God can be trusted, and nothing is too difficult for Him."