From the Desk of The DBeazy One-Man-Think-Tank

This morning marks 3 full weeks since I announced dbeazylife.com.  To date, the posts on dbeazy have been viewed over 1000 times.  I am encouraged by these numbers. I had no idea if anyone would check out the site, let alone check it out on a continual basis, so thanks for your support and spread the word.  From the onset, I had hoped to do special Sunday content.  In an effort to be more diligent in my Bible Study, I thought a regular Sunday post based on Biblical content might help me to be more focused on my study and at the same time, you might appreciate it as well.

Look at the featured picture for this story.  As an Information Technology Support Tech Analyst, this is one of the problems that we routinely encounter. Not too long ago, I was thinking about the city of Jericho in the Bible to refresh my memory of the details of the story, I opened my Bible to investigate. As soon as I found the chapter and verse, I received an assignment from the HelpDesk about a computer with the error message shown in the picture above.  Now over the years, I’ve seen this message many, many times, but I believe things often happen for a reason.  I read the message, one that I could almost recite by heart, and I saw the analogy between the children of Israel and this message.

The story of the city of Jericho is fascinating in the unique way that God instructed Joshua to act with regard to the “taking of the Promised Land.”  Here is how it all went down, in the paraphrased, plain English interpretation of DBeazy.

Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt.  Forty years later, we come to the point where Joshua and the children of Israel were about to take possession of the land.  In Joshua 2, the Bible says that Joshua sent spies into the city of Jericho to do recon and check things out.  There, a prostitute named Rahab hid the spies to do their work.  Rahab lied and led the men of Jericho to believe that the spies had gone, then reported to the Israelites that the people of Jericho were very frightened of the Israelites and that there would be no problem taking the city.

The story gets interesting at the end of the fifth chapter of the book of Joshua.  Joshua and the Israelites come upon a man standing in the road with his sword drawn. Joshua inquired as to his intention; whether the man was a friend or foe.  The man replied that he was neither, that he was the commander of the army of God.  In other words, God had sent an angel of superior rank to give instructions for this early campaign.  First and foremost, God assured Joshua that the result was already determined.  God then tells Joshua that the armed men of Israel should march around the city of Jericho once per day for 6 days with seven priests carrying trumpets in front of the Ark of the Covenant.   On the seventh day, God’s instruction was to march around the city seven times with the priests carrying trumpets and after the seventh pass the priest was to blow the trumpets and at the sound of the trumpets; the people were instructed to give a loud shout in unison. So Joshua instructed his army to do this, adding only the instructions to spare the lives of Rahab and her family and to bring the treasures of the city for the treasury of the Lord’s house.

So the instructions were followed, with the exception of one detail, and on the seventh day when the trumpets blared and the people shouted, the walls of the city of Jericho collapsed and Israel took the city, spared the family of Rahab, and brought the treasure to Joshua.  (Well, most of the treasure.)

As it always happens, even with people today, there was one who acted selfishly and caused everybody to suffer.  In the case of this story, a man by the name of Achan was tempted when collecting the treasures of the city of Jericho kept some of it for himself.  This one discretion angered God so much that he withdrew his protection from the army of Israel causing them to be defeated in a subsequent battle that should have been an easy win.

So, this is “DBeazy Cliff’s notes of the story of Jericho.”  But I encourage you to go and read this for yourselves to get the full version of events.

How does this relate to a computer error message today?  The error message reads, “The Trust Relationship between this workstation and primary domain failed.” In our case, I see myself as the “workstation” and God as the “primary domain,” and a broken trust in the relationship between the two, just as in the case of the story of the Israelites.

In the present time, we are accustomed to seeing everything in list form on the internet, so here is my summary in list form.

• God can and will use all types of people to help further his cause. In this case, a prostitute named Rahab.
• God’s instructions for us are often given to us in ways that seem less than direct but are none-the-less, instructions from God. For example, the angel who was the commander of the army of God in the story, but for us, it might be a minister, the advice of an elder, from some reading material, or even in a strong gut feeling.
• God assures us in advance the outcome, assuming that we believe, have faith, and follow his instruction.
• Miraculous things can and still happen when we believe and exercise faith.
• We should not be tempted to try to follow our own instructions, which separate us from God. As in the case of Achan.
• And finally, there will be those who try to rob us of the glory by trying to “explain down” certain events by giving some logical or plausible explanation other than what we know is the truth. In this case, it is scientists and geologists who suggest that the walls of Jericho fell due to some seismic event and that the timing was just coincidental.