Dissatisfaction
Joshua 7:16–26
I coveted them and took them. Joshua 7:21

What was it that led Achan to this sad act of disobedience? It began with dissatisfaction. Achan was dissatisfied with the way God had ordered the affairs of his life. Achan’s mind was not on the blessings that lay ahead. He was thinking of the past and what he lacked. Achan’s dissatisfaction, which was itself a sin, gave birth to disobedience.

This is usually the case. When Satan sinned by rebelling against God, it was dissatisfaction with his position in God’s world that led him to it. He was the creature; God was the Creator. But he wanted to be like God. He said, “I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isa. 14:13–14). Dissatisfaction was the root of Satan’s sin, and it was through his rebellion against God, who had made him what he was, that sin entered the universe.

It was the same in the case of Adam and Eve, when sin first entered the human family. God made Eve and Adam perfect in all respects. But when Satan called Eve’s attention to the fact that she and her husband were not “like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5), he sowed the seed of dissatisfaction and laid the ground for his triumph.

Is this not our case also? I am not suggesting that any follower of Christ should be satisfied with a second-rate course of discipleship, still less with disobedience. There is a proper form of spiritual ambition. Even the apostle Paul said, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13–14). But this very apostle, in the same letter in which he spoke of pressing forward to win the prize of Christ’s calling, also said, “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (4:12). Paul’s secret was to strive for Christ’s glory rather than his own and to be willing to achieve that end through whatever means God proposed for him.

Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865

Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.