Joshua 24:23 · World English Bible
Joshua 24:23 Meaning Now Therefore Put Away the Foreign Gods
“Now therefore put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to Yahweh, the God of Israel.”
What does Joshua 24:23 mean?
Declaring a choice changes nothing until the alternative is physically out of the house. The heart leans toward whatever stays within reach.
From the Self-Help reading below.
Joshua 24:23 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Self-Help
SELF-HELP
Self-Help
Declaring a choice changes nothing until the alternative is physically out of the house.
The heart leans toward whatever stays within reach. Access sets attention, attention grows desire, and desire decides what a person reaches for on the bad day, which is the only day that ever tests a choice. This is why disposal comes before devotion here and not the other way around.
A vow spoken minutes earlier counts for nothing while the strange gods are still in the luggage, which is why the declaration gets treated as unfinished work. Inclining the heart toward Yahweh is something a person does with their hands first, and skipping that leaves a working copy of the old life on hand, which gets used the first time the new one turns hard.
Self-Help lensGo deeper in the app
Self-Help lens
Live Joshua 24:23 today
- Delete the app, throw out the bottle, unfollow the account, today, not after you have proved you can handle it. Your hands finish what your decision only started.
- Ask someone you trust to hold the thing for you, the card, the key, the password. Handing it over is easier than resisting it at midnight.
- When the hard day comes and you reach for the old escape and it is not there, just sit in the gap for a minute. That gap is the whole point of having cleared the shelf.
What are you still keeping within reach, just in case the new way gets hard?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism
Right action comes before calm sitting, not after. Clear out what you keep reaching for and the mind settles on its own.
Stoicism · Epictetus
If you want to stop a habit, remove the occasions for it. Do not test your resolve against something you kept within arm's reach.
Tao Te Ching
Deal with a thing while it is still small. Put it down early and you will not have to wrestle it when it has grown.
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