What Should You Do When You've Really Messed Up?

Joshua 7, the defeat at Ai, and the way back from failure

By Pastor John Erickson

Failure hurts.

It's embarrassing. It can stick with you for years. And sometimes the fear of failing again keeps you from even trying.

But there's a difference between failing at something and becoming a failure.

That distinction comes into focus in one of the more uncomfortable chapters in Joshua.

Israel has just experienced an extraordinary victory at Jericho. Then they face a much smaller city called Ai. Compared with Jericho, this should have been easy. The scouts say they don't even need the whole army.

They go in confident-and get routed.

Thirty-six Israelites die. The people who had been so confident are suddenly terrified. What happened?

Joshua 7 gives us a sobering answer: someone in the camp had violated God's instructions after Jericho, and the people as a whole were not taking the covenant seriously.

This isn't a story about every modern disappointment being caused by secret sin. It is a particular event in Israel's history. But the way Joshua responds raises important questions about how we handle wrongdoing in our own lives.

First, Bring the Failure Before God

After the defeat, Joshua and the elders fall before the ark of the Lord. They grieve and cry out.

There are times when that is exactly the right place to begin.

Don't pretend it didn't happen. Don't immediately explain it away. Bring your grief and confusion honestly to God.

We can become very good at avoiding uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Some of us get angry. Some of us get defensive. Some of us change the subject and hope nobody notices.

But healing doesn't begin with pretending the wound isn't there.

I have seen how quickly we can move from having a problem to finding somebody else to blame. Once my son Jack had a new set of skateboarding pads and a helmet. Apparently that made him invincible. He ran at me full speed, headbutted my stomach, bounced off, and landed on the ground.

I had just stood there. But his version was that Dad threw him down. I was thinking, What did I do to you? What did you do to me?

Joshua's prayer includes a similar turn: God, why did you bring us across the Jordan? Before examining what had happened, he questions the mission itself. Honest prayer can bring that reaction into the light, too.

The Bible gives us language for confession, grief, and lament because God isn't asking us to come to him with a polished version of our lives.

Then Get Up and Deal With It

Here's the part of Joshua 7 that catches me off guard. God tells Joshua to get up.

The people have cried out, but there is something they now need to do. A wrong has been committed and must be brought into the light.

I think we can sometimes camp out in the first part.

We feel guilty. We feel terrible. We spend a lot of time talking about how terrible we feel. But we don't take the next step toward honesty, repair, and change.

It's possible to become so comfortable feeling sorry about something that we never actually address it.

And that isn't repentance. That's just getting stuck.

I call that riding the struggle bus. I've been in accountability groups where it felt as though we were all riding together: confess the same struggle, feel bad, pray, repeat. Supporting one another matters. But we also need help taking the next step. The struggle bus is not supposed to become our permanent address.

Prayer matters. So does the willingness to respond to what God is showing us.

Stop Hiding and Own What Happened

Eventually Achan's actions are uncovered, and he acknowledges what he did. He had taken things that were supposed to be devoted to the Lord and hidden them away.

Sin often involves some version of hiding. We hide from other people. We hide behind excuses. Sometimes we even hide from ourselves.

One of the most freeing-and difficult-things we can say is, "I did that. It was wrong. I need to deal with it."

Not "I did it because you made me angry." Not "Everybody does it." Not "If you knew what I've been through, you'd understand."

Just honesty.

When appropriate, that honesty may need to happen with people we trust, too. Confession isn't about making every private struggle public. But isolation can make it easier to keep repeating the same patterns.

We need people who love us enough to tell the truth and stay with us as we learn to live differently.

Forgiveness Doesn't Erase Every Consequence

Here's another uncomfortable part of growing up spiritually: God can forgive us, and there can still be consequences.

If someone drives impaired and harms another person, saying "I'm sorry" does not undo what happened. Forgiveness matters, but so do responsibility, repair, and justice.

The events of Joshua 7 include severe consequences in an ancient covenant setting. We shouldn't simply transfer those penalties into the church today. The lesson for us is not to imitate the punishment. It's to take seriously the reality that our choices affect other people.

When we've hurt someone, repentance may include asking forgiveness, telling the truth, making restitution, accepting boundaries, and allowing time for trust to be rebuilt.

Those steps can be hard. But refusing them usually makes the wound deeper.

I learned that with the way I used my phone. I could scroll and scroll instead of engaging with Gina, the kids, or what was happening in my own life. I tried promises and temporary rules. Then I put restrictions on the phone, with Gina holding the password.

It was inconvenient. Sometimes I couldn't look up something simple or download an app. But my family mattered more than keeping every convenience. That did not make me instantly fixed; it put a real boundary around a pattern I needed to change.

Your next step may look different. The point is to move beyond wishing a pattern would disappear and make a concrete change that helps you love people well.

Failure Doesn't Have to Be Your Final Chapter

The good news is that Joshua's story doesn't end in chapter 7.

In chapter 8, God leads Israel forward again. The defeat was real. The loss was real. The wrongdoing had to be addressed. But there was still a future.

That's one of the beautiful things about the gospel. In Christ, we can be forgiven and restored. We don't have to define ourselves forever by the worst thing we've done.

At the same time, grace isn't a shortcut around taking responsibility. Grace gives us the courage to come into the light and begin again.

If you've really messed up, begin with honesty. Bring it to God. Seek the help you need. Take responsibility for the people affected. Make the next faithful choice.

You can't rewrite yesterday.

But by God's grace, yesterday doesn't have to write the rest of your story.