The Hidden Thing Under the Tent

Achan came home from Jericho with a secret bundled under his cloak.

Only a few days before, the great walls of that city had come tumbling down at a shout, because God fought the battle his people never could. And God had told them one thing: keep none of the shining treasure for yourselves.

But Achan had seen a beautiful robe, and silver, and a bar of gold. Oh, he wanted them. So when no one was looking, he took them. He carried them back to his tent, dug a hole in the dirt right under the place where he slept, and buried them there.

Then he smiled and said nothing.

He thought, It is only a little thing. It is only mine. No one will ever know.

But the next time God's people went out to fight, they lost. Strong men ran away afraid. Some of them did not come home. And nobody could understand why.

Joshua fell on his face before God. "Why?" he cried. "Why did you let this happen?"

And God said something that must have surprised them all. The trouble is not out there with your enemies. The trouble is in here, among you. Something is hidden. Something broken is buried, and its hurt has spread to everyone.

One man's secret had reached all of them. That is what a buried wrong does. It does not stay small, and it does not stay just yours. It seeps out, the way a hidden thing rots the ground above it.

So in the morning they searched. Tribe by tribe. Family by family. Closer and closer it came, until at last it stopped at one man, standing there with his heart pounding.

Achan.

"My son," Joshua said, "tell the truth. Hide it no longer."

And Achan let it all out. "I saw them, and I wanted them, and I took them. I hid them in the ground inside my tent."

They went and dug, and there it was, just as he said: the secret no one could explain, lying in the dark under the dirt.

It was a heavy, terrible day. A hidden thing like that could not simply be brushed over and forgotten. The brokenness underneath had to be dealt with, and in those long-ago days, it cost a life.

But another day was coming. A day when one more man would stand where the broken ones should stand, a man who had never taken anything and never hidden anything, who loved us far too much to leave the buried thing buried. Jesus would walk out beyond the camp and gather into himself the hidden wrong of every one of us, every robe and coin we ever pushed down into the dark.

So you will never have to dig a hole and pray no one finds it. He already knows. He went looking for the hidden thing himself, and he carried it all the way away, so you could stand in the open, clean, and unafraid, and home.