By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days. Hebrews11:30
Joshua had to lead the Israelites to their first conquest into the promised land and Jericho was a formidable challenge. When he went to survey the territory to come up with a strategy, God met him and gave him the battle plan.
The plan was unorthodox to say the least:
"March around the city once a day for seven days in silence. On the seventh day march around seven times and then shout and the walls will fall."
For the Israelites this must have been excruciating. Once the citizens of Jericho got wise to the fact that they'd do a circuit and then leave, they jeered and booed and the Israelites remained silent.
On the seventh day the mocking must have reached a crescendo as the Israelites had to grit their teeth in the midst of the mocking. It must have been so tempting to yell something back or give them the Hebrew equivalent of the middle finger or some such gesture of defiance.
Sometimes faith is about hanging in there when results are slow or intangible. Sometimes faith is about persevering. Sometimes faith is about going "through the motions" until we are left with nothing but God.
By the time the Israelites had circled the city thirteen times in seven days, they would either have lost faith or gained it. It's clear that the latter was true.
They let out a mighty shout of faith - and their waiting and patience was met with the powerful response of an incredible God!
Maybe you're going through the motions, waiting for God, maybe you're even having doubts about going to worship Him on Sunday. Maybe your doubts are mocking and taunting you...
Take a page from the Israelite's book and hang in there. Faith sometimes has slow results, but when the moment comes the triumph will be great!
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
