What Have I Kept Between Me and God?

Joshua 5:15

We have been walking slowly through this encounter between Joshua and the Commander of the Lord’s army.

And I know it may seem strange that we are spending five weeks on just a few verses, but I think that is part of what we need. We move too fast. We read too fast. We want the point too fast. We want the application before we let the presence of God deal with us.

Joshua did not get to rush past this moment.

He was near Jericho. The wall was still there. The assignment was still in front of him. The pressure had not disappeared. But before God gave him the battle plan, Joshua had to be stopped. He had to hear the holy “No.” He had to recognize that the One standing before him was not a consultant, but the Commander. And when he understood that, he fell on his face and worshiped.

That is where we are now.

Joshua is on the ground before the Lord, and the next words he hears are not what we might expect.

“The commander of the Lord’s army replied, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did as he was told.” Joshua 5:15 NLT.

Take off your sandals.

I want you to think about that.

Of all the things God could have said in that moment, that is what He said. He did not start with Jericho. He did not explain the strategy. He did not give Joshua the marching instructions. He did not tell him how many days it would take or what the people needed to do.

He said, “Take off your sandals.”

That grabs me because I am usually asking for the battle plan.

I want to know what to do next. I want to know how to handle what is in front of me. I want to know what God is asking me to say, where He is asking me to go, what decision I am supposed to make, how long I am supposed to wait, and what obedience is supposed to look like in the moment I am standing in.

And God is not against direction. He gives direction. Joshua 6 is coming. The battle plan will come. The walls will fall. But here, in this moment, God deals with something before strategy.

He deals with what is between Joshua and holy ground.

Sandals were not sinful. That is important. God was not telling Joshua to remove something evil. He was telling him to remove something ordinary, something necessary, something that had protected his feet on the road. Sandals carried the dust of where he had been. They created a layer between his body and the ground beneath him.

And now the ground is holy.

So they have to come off.

Please hear this carefully. God is not humiliating Joshua. He is not playing some religious game. He is not making Joshua perform a strange ritual so he can prove his sincerity.

This is not punishment. It is preparation. It is nearness. It is God saying, “Joshua, this is not ordinary ground because I am here. Nothing gets to remain between you and My presence.”

That is where this becomes personal for me. Because I wonder how many things I have kept on that may not have started as rebellion, but have become distance. Things I learned to wear because life was hard. Things I picked up along the way. Things that protected me for a season, but now stand between me and deeper surrender.

• Fear can become a sandal.
• Control can become a sandal.
• Pride can become a sandal.
• Ministry can become a sandal.
• Self-protection can become a sandal.
• Even the way I have learned to survive pain can become something I keep between myself and God.

And I need to be careful here because I do not want to make this sound neat. It is not neat. Some of the things we carry have stories behind them. Some of the ways we protect ourselves were formed in places of deep hurt. Some of the distance between us did not appear out of nowhere. It came through disappointment, grief, betrayal, pressure, sickness, loss, fear, and seasons where we were just trying to keep breathing.

So I am not saying this lightly.

But I am saying it seriously.

There are things that may have helped us walk to this place that cannot remain on holy ground.

That is hard.

Because sometimes we want God to use us, but we do not want Him to touch what we have used to protect ourselves. We want the battle plan, but we do not want to remove the layer. We want movement, but we do not want exposure. We want obedience, but only if we can keep our distance in the places that feel too tender.

And then God says, “Take off your sandals.” Not because He wants to hurt us. Because He wants us near.

That is the part I do not want us to miss. Holy ground is not just about fear. It is about presence. Yes, God is holy. Yes, He is utterly other. Yes, He is not casual or common. Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” NLT. That should sober us.

But Psalm 18:2 also says, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior” NLT. That should steady us.

Both are true.

The God who makes us tremble is also the God who becomes our refuge. The God who says, “Take off your sandals,” is not driving Joshua away. He is drawing him into the reality of His presence. That is what holiness does. It exposes us, but it does not expose us to destroy us. It exposes us so we can stand before God without hiding.

I think this is one of the reasons many of us struggle with holiness. We hear holiness and think only of rules, behavior, or what we are supposed to stop doing. And yes, holiness will absolutely change how we live. It will confront sin. It will call for repentance. It will touch our thoughts, our bodies, our desires, our relationships, our obedience, and our private lives.

But holiness begins with God.

He is holy.

And when He comes near, everything between Him and us has to be dealt with.

Not just the obvious sins. Those must be confessed, no question. But sometimes the Lord puts His finger on things we have called wisdom that are really fear. Things we have called strength that are really pride. Things we have called discernment that are really bitterness. Things we have called responsibility that are really control. Things we have called personality that are really just unredeemed habits.

That is raw, but it is true.

And if we are going to be formed as disciples, we have to let the Lord name those things.

Psalm 139:23–24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” NLT.

That is a dangerous prayer if we mean it.

Search me… Not search them. Not search the people who hurt me. Not search the people who do not understand me…

Search me.

That is the prayer of someone willing to remove the sandals when God points to them.

And I think this is where we need to slow down this week. What have I kept between God and me? What layer have I gotten used to? What have I carried from where I have been that I keep bringing into the presence of God? What part of me still stays guarded, even when I am saying the right things?

I am asking myself that too.

Because it is possible to be close to spiritual things and still stay distant from God. It is possible to serve, teach, lead, worship, give, and speak truth while still keeping something on that God is asking me to remove.

That should sober us.

Joshua did not argue. The text says, “And Joshua did as he was told.” Joshua 5:15 NLT.

That is simple obedience.

And maybe that is what makes it beautiful.

He did not need to understand the whole battle plan to obey the first instruction. He did not need all the details. He did not need to know how sandals connected to Jericho. God spoke, and Joshua obeyed.

That is discipleship.

We do not get to wait until we understand everything before we obey the thing God has made clear.

And maybe the thing He is making clear right now is not the whole future. Maybe it is one sandal. One layer. One place of distance. One hidden defense. One area of control. One fear you keep calling caution. One wound you keep letting rule your obedience. One place where you keep asking God for strategy while He keeps saying, “Come near.”

Please do not rush past that.

The question this week is not, “Lord, what is the battle plan?”

The question is, “Lord, what needs to come off?”

That question may take courage. It may hurt. It may expose something you have been avoiding. But if the Lord is the One asking, then His command is not meant to destroy you. It is meant to bring you into the nearness of His holy presence.

And that is mercy.

So this week, I want to invite you to bring your real life before the Lord. Not the polished version. Not the version that sounds spiritual. The real one. Bring the fear. Bring the control. Bring the places you have stayed guarded. Bring the old dust from old roads. Bring the habits of survival. Bring the parts of you that learned how to keep functioning but forgot how to stand barefoot before God.

And ask Him… What needs to come off?

Then listen.

And when He shows you, do not explain it away. Do not defend it. Do not dress it up in spiritual language. Do not say, “That is just how I am.” Do not say, “That is not a big deal.” Do not say, “I will deal with that later.”

Take it off.

Not for shame… For nearness… Because holy ground is not ordinary ground. The presence of God is not a casual thing. And the formed disciple cannot keep a distance and call it surrender.

The Commander has come.

The ground where you are standing is holy. And some things that helped you walk to this place cannot remain between you and Him.

DRJBD