From Joshua 6

This isn’t the first time in Scripture that God’s approach to doing something has been interesting.  It won’t be the last time either.  The Israelites are marching in with the goal of conquering the Promised Land as God has instructed them.  The first major obstacle in their way is the city of Jericho.  In the face of this city, God tells the people of Israel to march around the city for six days.  On the seventh day, they were supposed to march around the city seven times and then seven priests would blow seven trumpets and then the people were supposed to “shout with a great shout.” (Joshua 6:3-5) I’m not an expert in military tactics, but that doesn’t seem like a great strategy for the conquest of a walled city.  Nevertheless, that’s exactly what the Israelites did and on the seventh day, after the people shouted a great shout, the wall of Jericho fell and Israel sacked the city.  The only one who was spared was Rahab (from Joshua 2).  God gave the Israelites some instructions that, from a human point of view, were ridiculous.  And through those ridiculous actions, He gave Jericho into their hands.

Sometimes the way God goes about accomplishing things makes no sense to us.  Paul, in 1 Corinthians, actually makes the comment that the wisdom of God is foolishness to men.  There could be a lot of reasons that God does things this way, and many of those reasons could be totally beyond our ability to comprehend.  But one reason that is evident in the events at Jericho is simple, no one hears about the walls of Jericho collapsing when Israel shouted at them and will think “oh, that makes sense, the Israelites must’ve been really good at shouting.” The walls collapsed after people walked around them a bit and yelled at them – something else must’ve been going on there!  Yeah, God was involved.  When God takes Israel through a process like this, He is making sure that He is credited for their victory over Jericho.  It’s something worth remembering the next time God’s Word is pushing us to do something that doesn’t make sense, there could be a lot of reasons for it, but one of those reasons could be that God is creating space in your life for Him to work in a way that the credit can only go to Him.

Focus on God

We are reminded in these verses that God graciously works in our lives, sometimes in ways that don’t make sense to us.

Function in Our Lives

We are encouraged to trust in God’s process, to trust that He knows better than us.

Topics to Pray About                                                               

• Thank God for His work in our lives.
• Confess to God the times where you find justifications for the blessings He gives you that don’t include Him.
• Ask God to open your eyes to His work in your life.

In His Service,

J. LeBorious