But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. Joshua 6:18
When I was a kid, the government declared a war on drugs with a campaign slogan of Just Say No. The goal was to give kids the tools to resist the peer pressure to use drugs. We do know that kids often use drugs because of peer pressure and so, the hope was that if we taught kids that drugs were bad and that they didn’t have to follow their friends, they’d abstain. What was much more difficult to address, was the fact that drugs have an inherent appeal. There’s a reason that a kid’s peers are using drugs in the first place, and it isn’t because those peers are too dumb to know that drugs are harmful. They know, and they want drugs anyway, because those drugs do something for them.
We can know something is harmful for us, yet want it anyway. This is our human condition, as illustrated in today’s passage. In the story, God’s people were about to conquer Jericho, when God commanded them to destroy everything in it. Precious metals were to be spared for the Israelite’s treasury, but everything else of value was to be destroyed. God knew it would be tempting for those who conquered the city to desire the spoils of war, but he forbade them from doing so. Those individual soldiers though, had to face significant temptation. No one will know if I take this one little thing. Why should I destroy it? It’s valuable. God won’t mind one small indulgence. God warned them though, that if they took something devoted to destruction, they would bring destruction upon themselves.
Keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction. It isn’t enough just to know something is bad for me. That knowledge alone doesn’t override my desire for it. I want unhealthy food because it tastes good and knowing it’s unhealthy doesn’t change my appetite. So, if I want to be healthy, I must daily be very purposeful about my decisions, keeping myself away from the unhealthy. This will likely mean making radical changes in my life, cutting out the destructive and committing myself to those activities which reinforce healthy behaviors. In the case of my drug addiction, this has meant treatment, recovery meetings, sacrifice, and radical life changes. I’d like to be able to simply flip a switch in my brain and Just Say No, but healthy living isn’t that simple. For me, living in faith and recovery means that I must daily commit myself to doing – making purposeful choices that take my life where I want it to go.