Stopping short

This week is a quick one, on Joshua 16:10:

They did not dislodge the Canaanites living in Gezer; to this day the Canaanites live among the people of Ephraim but are required to do forced labor.

God gave land to the Israelites when he took them out of Egypt. All of the land in Canaan was theirs, but they had to fight for it. A few tribes of the Israelites didn't fight very hard, and let some of the foreigners live in parts of the land that were allocated to them. That didn't turn out well for them over time, because they had other people competing for their land, water, and food, and influencing them away from God. They couldn't just kill or drive out the people a generation or two later, because by then they had complicated social ties. Their decision to take the easy path had bad consequences in the future.

There are a lot of examples in the Old Testament of God telling the Israelites to clear people out of the land, or to kill them, and the Israelites instead deciding to let them live, or even to include them in their society through marriage or slavery. I chose this verse, because it's short and to the point. We like short, right?

God didn't give the Israelites the task of genocide because he's a big meanie. He did it because he wanted his people to flourish free of distractions and political/social obstacles. Compare the two scenarios where there is a famine in the land:

Scenario 1: Israelites cleared land a hundred years ago. Food is divided up amongst the Israelites. Anyone attempting to show up and infiltrate their society to get their food is obvious as a foreigner because their language and clothing are different. Everyone can turn to God together for prayer and support. Israelites keep their food, reproduce successfully, and remain faithful to their God.

Scenario 2: Israelites let a couple Canaanite villages live among them. There is enough food for the Israelites, but the Canaanites are hungry too. They don't consider themselves to be Israelites, so they take care of their own first. Many of them are agricultural slaves, so they can siphon off food before their masters even see it. They invite their relatives from surrounding Canaanite nations to come in and join them, which reduces the food available to the Israelites, but there's no way of telling who legitimately lives there and who is coming in from distant Canaan, because the foreigners don't dress or talk any differently than the natives. Besides, the surrounding community can't drive them out at this point anyway, because the economy depends on their labor, and because many of them are relatives through marriage with the Israelites. When times get difficult, the Canaanites blame the situation on the Israelite God, and offer their own gods as competition. People fall away and begin to worship the Canaanite gods out of desperation. Many Israelites starve, families fall apart and they lose their culture and faith. Fail!

See the difference? God's plan is a great idea for his people, but it seems like a lot of work at first. Only when time passes, even beyond a generation or two, does his wisdom begin to make sense. Things are way harder after that time passes than they would have been if they'd just taken care of things at first. Which is harder, driving out a few "squatters" after you've conquered most of the territory anyway, or ripping your society apart to try to stay alive when you're already weak?

I'm not saying that God is going to ask us to do ethnic cleansing or kill drifters. That time is long past. But sometimes God asks us to do a complete work, and we stop when we think we've gone far enough. To us, the goal seems to be met, but if we look at what God actually requires of us, we have a ways to go. We must pay attention to the details. Sometimes it just isn't possible for us to see the big picture and understand why we have to do things a certain way. God knows more than we do. Don't stop short on things God has asked you to do. Don't stop at "good enough." Do what needs to be done.