12 Stones Principle – Break Free From Fear, Failure and Discouragement

Life can be a little overwhelming at times. While there are many moments to celebrate breakthroughs and success, there are other times where you feel like nothing is going your way.

How often do you find yourself in pain, suffering, failure, discouragement or even feeling a little defeated in your life and business? If you’re like most of us, it’s more often that we’d like it to be.

If you’re a faith driven business, there’s a way you can quickly change the outlook in your life. To demonstrate, let’s go back to the historic account of Joshua and the Israelites.

See, they too went through extreme circumstances and they’re God’s chosen people. They won great battles and conquered vast lands yet continued to find themselves defeated and even enslaved. If God’s chosen people found themselves in this situation, you’d better believe that we would to.

What Do The Israelites Have To Do With Me And My Life?

But this post isn’t about being in that place of defeat and failure or even staying there. It’s about giving you a spiritual, yet practical way to get yourself out when times get tough.

You see, in the book of Joshua, Israel crossed the Jordan River and once again saw the miraculous hand of God. Just like with Moses at the Red Sea, God interceded and got them over on dry ground once more. This time, however, he gave Joshua instruction on what to do differently.

Here’s what the Word says:

Joshua 4:1-4 -When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”Let’s think about this for a minute. Here they are in front of a flowing river during flood season and they get to see God do something amazing on their behalf. If you think about it, there are many times in our lives that God has also done amazing things for and through us.

The interesting thing here is that God doesn’t just let them march on. That would only serve as part of the blessing of this event. No, God had another plan.

God Does Great Things, But It’s Bigger Than You Think

After crossing over, God told Joshua to select 12 men, one from each tribe, who would grab 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan River. These stones would then be taken to Gilgal as a memorial of what God did for His people.

So, what do these stones really mean and what do they have to do with you and me?

Let’s continue on with what the Word says:

Joshua 4:20-24 – And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

As you read this, we see that the purpose of the 12 stones served to remind Israelites for generations to come what good and powerful things God had done for them. Whenever they felt alone, they can look back to the 12 stones and remember how God came through for them in a big way.

So, what are your 12 stones?

What can you go back to as a reminder of what God has done in your life? When things get tough and everything seems to be going against us, let’s reach back to our memorial of the many times God came through for us in small and big things.

He’s the same God today, yesterday and forever more and if He’s come through for you before, He can do it again.

Comment below and share what you use to remember times where God brought your through a tough situation.