We probably all grew up rooting for the underdog. Whenever we watched a sports game or the Olympics, we always wanted the lower seed team to win. In March every year, we have “March Madness” and what a madness it is. Everyone fills out their bracket, and usually, everyone picks an underdog to have a Cinderella story.
This article’s focus is not on the underdog, but rather what happened to the higher-ranked team. This article is not going to talk about the David versus Goliath upset, which wasn’t an upset at all, but rather the defeat of the Israelite army by the little town of Ai.
Let’s get caught up with what happened to Israel up to this point. The Israelite people have just crossed the Jordan River after conquering all the nations east of the Jordan. They have just destroyed Jericho and are headed to the city of Ai. In Joshua 7:2-5, we read of an upset that could have been prevented. Joshua sends out three thousand men to take down this small town whose people are few. Joshua didn’t go to God to ask Him for His battle plan; instead, Joshua thought he could pull this win off without God. HUGE MISTAKE. Ai pulled a huge upset and defeated the army of Israel and killed 36 men. The mistake was they did not go to God.
As Christians, do we let the underdog Satan have a Cinderella story in our game of life? Did Satan upset the Apostle Judas? Did Satan upset King David, a man after God’s own heart? How can we prepare ourselves to be ready against Satan? Each morning we need to wake up and put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). We need to understand God’s battle plan (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The big thing we can learn from the defeat at Ai is that, without the battle plan of God, Satan has really good odds in his game against us.
- Matt Jones