On Fighting Bravely

Theres a neat little story in 2 Samuel 10.
I'm going to type it out here, and you should probably read it.
It takes place during the reign of King David over Isreal, and documents the defeat of a people called the Ammonites:

In the course of time, the king of the Ammonites died, and his son Hanun succeeded him as king. David thought, "I will show kindness to Hanun son if Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me." So David sent a delegation to express his sympathy to Hanun concerning his father.
When David's men came to the land of the Ammonites, the Ammonite nobles said to Hanun their lord, "Do you think David is honoring your father by sending men to you to express sympathy? Hasn't David sent them to you to explore the city and spy it out and overthrow it?" So Hanun seized David's men, shaved off half of each man's beard, cut off their garments in the middle at the buttocks, and sent them away.
[2 Samuel 10:1-4, NIV]
-Now, first of all, David had perfectly good intentions.
He just wanted to show his respects to the new Ammonite king after his dad died.
But the advisers to the king were morons and deceived the king- theres a lot more you could probably say about that.
Secondly, eww gross. How much would it stink to have someone cut a hole in your pants where your bum is?
anyway, continuing on:

When David was told about this, he sent messengers to meet the men, for they were greatly humiliated. The king said, "Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back."
When the Ammonites realized that they had become a stench in David's nostrils, they hired twenty thousand Aramean foot soldiers from Beth Rehob and Zobah, as well as the king of Maacah with a thousand men, and also twelve thousand men from Tob.
[10:5-6]

-So David was a pretty cool king, and saved his messengers the humiliation of having to show themselves with their beards cut off (beards were a big deal back then). Props to him on that.
The other thing is, wouldn't you think the smart thing for the Ammonites to do would have been to apologize?
Like, they knew they screwed up, and they should have been like, "oh man, my bad, have some money or servants or something, and don't hate us".
Instead, they pulled one of the dumbest Foreign Relations mistakes possible and mobilized to attack. "Maybe if we kill them, they'll forget that we're morons"
...yeah. not happening.

On hearing this, David sent Joab out with the entire army of fighting men. The Ammonites came out and drew up in battle formation at the entrance to their city gate, while the Arameans of Zobah and Rehob and the men of Tob and Maacah were by themselves in the open country.
Joab saw that there were battle lines in front of him and behind him; so he selected some of the best troops in Israel and deployed them against the Arameans. He put the rest of the men under the command of Abishai his brother and deployed them against the Ammonites. Joab said, "If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you are to come to my rescue; but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come to rescue you. Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his sight."
[10:7-12]

The story wraps up with everyone running away from the Israelite armies, and the Ammonites pretty much getting owned.
But my point here is that last statement.
"The Lord will do what is good in his sight."
In the book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day that pastor Nate gave to the uturn leaders/student leaders, i just read a chapter that was all about changing our prayers to what God wants instead of what we want.
Soooo many times in life, we have an idea of what we think we want.
A car, a job, a house, a girlfriend... so we pray for a car or a job or a house or a girlfriend or something else like that.
But for all we know, God might not want you to have what you think you should have.
He could have an entirely different plan for you.
And who wants to be praying for something against God's will?
no one.

That's why Joab's mindset is so good.
He wasn't concerned so much with, "OH EM GEE WE HAVE TO KILL THEMS AMMONITES ENEMIESSSS" as much as he was concerned with, "Fight bravely and God will have his way."

It's like he's saying, "Buckle down and do your Best, and everything will go the way God wants it to go."
It didn't matter to Joab if they were outnumbered or outsmarted or anything like that.
He knew that no matter what, all he had to do was his best, and God would pull through no matter what that meant.

That's pretty cool.