God May Take You Into Precarious Situations To Teach You To Trust Him

Joshua 5:8-9---And it came to pass when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.

Upon crossing the Jordan, Joshua was commanded to circumcise all the males, all those who crossed the Jordan that had been born during the wanderings in the wilderness. For some reason, they waited until they arrived in the Promised Land to be circumcised. This was a great act of faith. They are in their enemies' territory, and the pain makes them unable to fight. All 40,000 armed men would be lying helpless until they healed. They knew the story of their forefathers who had slaughtered a village that was unable to fight because all of their men had just been circumcised. But in their present situation, God was ordering them to be circumcised. By faith, they obeyed and trusted God to protect them. I think the Lord does something similar with us, asking us to make ourselves vulnerable to our enemies, and yet trust Him to keep us safe. All through this wilderness wandering, we had heard whining about how good they had it in Egypt. There were numerous plans to return. Once they even had a vote to elect someone to guide them back. God had taken them out of Egypt but would not get Egypt out of their hearts. They needed to cooperate but would not. Now that that generation had died and the new generation was circumcised to God, the reproach of Egypt was finally gone. Egypt was finally out of their hearts. Is the world out of you? Gilgal sounds like the Hebrew word for "roll". Let God roll Egypt out of your life so that all your desire is toward Him.