Whose Side Are You On?

I received disappointing news yesterday. Conflict and harm in a community I love did not make way for healing and repair in the way many had hoped. Ruptures left holes where deep humility, repentance, and reconciliation were needed.

Godly men and women prayed. Others risked using their voices. It was messy, but full of people working to name and right wrongs—hoping that light would pave a path toward repentance and reconciliation.

No one side got what they hoped for.

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In Joshua 5, as Israel is about to enter the Promised Land—after forty years of wandering in the desert—Joshua encounters a mysterious man standing in his path with his sword drawn. 

Joshua, the leader of Israel’s army, asks a question that feels almost inevitable:

“Are you for us, or for our enemies?”

Can you hear Joshua’s heart pounding?

Are you on our side? Or theirs?

The answer he receives is unexpected. Unsettling.

“Neither,” He replies.

“I am the commander of the LORD’s army.”

And as He so often does, in a single word God disrupts our constructs—and in this case, the way we frame conflict.

Joshua’s question exposes our natural inclination to want people to be on our side. And it exposes our belief that God must take sides as well. Surely He is for us and against them. Right?

But God isn’t drawn into our framework. He is not merely taking sides. But that doesn’t mean He isn’t for us. He is.

He’s on the move—in Joshua’s story and in ours. He’s accomplishing redemption for Joshua, for the Israelites, for a Canaanite woman named Rahab (ostensibly an enemy)—and ultimately for us. He is working in ways that reach far beyond what we can see. Always.

And He shows up on the scene—to be with Joshua at a critical threshold, just before battle. Immanuel: God with us.

It is incredibly tempting to believe we have the corner on wisdom or righteousness—to assume God sides with us because we’re right, or even because we’re doing our best to follow Him. We want heroes and villains. We want certainty. We want to know who God is backing, but He doesn't align Himself with our agendas.

Joshua’s encounter reminds us that God won’t be compartmentalized in the ways we might prefer. When Joshua wants to know whose side He's on—God responds with who He is, instead.

It brings me to my knees.

Even when we're convinced we're in the right, our posture still matters. The antidote to pride is not more pride. Pride cannot heal what pride has broken. The antidote to harm, abuse, or dysfunction within the church is not stronger egos, louder voices, or self-righteous certainty.

Pride cannot heal what pride has broken.

The antidote is humility.

Humility does not mean silence or denial. Humility does not excuse harm or ask victims to minimize their pain. It does not rush healing or bypass justice.

Humility bows—not before the demands of those who would crush, belittle, or destroy—but before the God who lifts us up, who is with us, and who is always working for our good.

Humility refuses to become what it stands against. It shines light and truth on wrongs in the name of Jesus, but it refuses to fight sin and abuse with the same weapons that created them. Humility washes feet. And humility kneels—like Joshua on holy ground, and asks a better question: “What does my Lord say to His servant?”

May we listen well.

Where might the Lord offer us a new framework or construct in what we're facing? Or a more expansive picture of what He’s doing in a painful season? And where might we need to encounter Immanuel: God with us today?

He is with us, even now.