Joshua 19:47 (ESV Strong's)
47 When the territory of the people of Dan was lost to them, the people of Dan went up and fought against Leshem, and after capturing it and striking it with the sword they took possession of it and settled in it, calling Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor.
God Empowers to Overcome Loss
We have all lost at one time or another. We have all had days when the power of sin has defeated us and caused us to “lose ground” in our walk with the Savior. Note what Paul says about this in Romans:
Romans 7:15-17 (ESV Strong's)
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Paul understood this three steps forward and two back life that can be the center of the Christian experience. The concept of Christian perseverance is real and alive. It is not a case of will be have set backs. It is the case of will be overcome those set backs when they happen.
In the passage from Joshua we see this is true for the tribe of Dan. They were given land and then lost it. The beauty of this passage is not that they lost land. The beauty of this passage is that they lost land (the promise of God to them) and God was there, in His power, to enable to take the ground back. They not only took it back, they renamed it. They called the land they took back, “Dan.” The Hebrew word for Dan means a straight course, as if you were sailing and you had a compass setting you set to sail. Dan had a lost and then recovered from the loss in the power of the Spirit. The immediate text does not say that the power of the Spirit enabled them, but the theme of Joshua and the theme of taking the Promise Land is all about that. As we read the book we see the power of God, through faith in the coming Christ, under the power of the Holy Spirit. We will have loss in the Christian life. Sin dwells in us. But, the difference in the life of the believer is that we have the power of God to get us over that struggle and loss and allow us to not only conquer, but to rename the loss as part of our new course.
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