Feigned Faith: Joshua’s Inner Tactic

Neville's Inner Vision

What you behold in Joshua 8:4–6 is not a military trick alone but a reflection of a law within consciousness: the city you defend is your present state, and the movement of retreat is your willingness to step back in imagination while keeping faith. The enemy that comes out represents the stubborn beliefs that your view of lack would stay behind the walls. By saying, we will flee before them, you demonstrate a decision to yield old forms of being only long enough to lure their surface power into the light, so you can transform it. Then, as you draw them out, you observe how the mind, like Joshua, remains ready, not anxious, awaiting the next movement of your inner I AM. The victory is not in the outward pursuit, but in the inner alignment with instruction, in obedience to the I AM, which causes the scene to rearrange itself to your inner conviction. Observe that the city is your present consciousness—the place you have known as real. The feigned retreat is a strategic inner move: you pretend to withdraw from the problem in your mind, yet you remain steadfast in the I AM, the awareness that never leaves its throne. The enemy coming out symbolizes the beliefs and fears that assume they can keep you trapped behind the walls. When you announce, 'we will flee before them' you are not capitulating; you are drawing the conflict into the open so its energy can be seen, measured, and redirected by your higher activity. In this inner scene, the plan is not to escape but to reveal; the outcome follows obedience—listening to the inner command and acting in harmony with the I AM. Thus the victory manifests as a shift in your sense of self, not as a conquest of an outward city. The moment you revise the scene in imagination, you stand free within the very walls you once believed contained you.