What do you do when you are facing a challenge in life and you pray and ask the Lord for His help and His instructions seem insane? Like Joshua was tasked with taking the promised land and the first stop was this huge city, Jericho. God’s instructions to Joshua were go take a few laps around the city, basically God says, “you and the people go for a walk,” the action plan was for Joshua and the people to walk laps without speaking and not take action. Seems easy enough but let’s be honest, we all know that doing something, anything, even if it’s wrong, is easier than doing nothing and being quiet about it. But that is what the Lord told them to do, God’s instructions may seem insane but He always has a purpose and a plan, here it is to show His people who is responsible for their victories. He would do something similar thousands of years later, check out 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 if you want to see what I mean.
Even with God’s clear instructions we sometimes miss HIs point. For example, Joshua fought the battle of Jericho...Jericho..was another favorite childhood song of all kids especially boys who have been forced to go to bible school. It was a fun song but not really true. Joshua did not fight the battle of Jericho, God did. God gives Joshua an “I told you so,” in Joshua 6:2, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand.” The battle was over before it began. This first major victory that Israel needed to get the promised land was a freebie. All they had to do was go take what God had already provided, VICTORY! The same is true for our lives today. There are plenty of places in our lives that need to be addressed whether it is sin that we can’t seem to stop or people we can’t figure out how to stand. You may want to attack your challenges straight up and do something right now! But God says, take another lap and let me handle it. For example, that person you are struggling to deal with in your life, that will not leave you alone, or is standing between you and what you feel like God wants you to do or perhaps, they’re just mean to you or someone you love. Maybe you pray and ask the Lord to fix that problem. What does He tell you to do? How about Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” In other words go walk some laps and praise the Lord and ask Him to deal with it. You do nothing and trust Him with the results. Where we might want to begin a smear campaign or offer up a good old fashioned black eye, God says take a lap. That doesn’t mean we don’t confront that person openly and honestly where it is appropriate only that we don’t resort to the tactics the world does in order to resolve conflict. The same principles apply to our finances, health, career, raising our children on and on the list goes. Very often God’s instructions for dealing with the challenges in our lives feel more like doing nothing than actually dealing with the problem. Guess what, that is because He has already given the victory and He expects us to trust Him to take care of us, according to His Word and His Will, not our desires and our schemes. God will and does deal with the problem people and problems we face in life. But on HIs terms not ours. For example, one person I would not want to be is Alexander the coppersmith that Paul mentions in 2 Timothy 4:14, who Paul says did him great harm, “but that the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.” Paul the Apostle, one of the toughest people to ever serve the Lord, let God take care of handing out the black eyes, Paul stayed focused on serving the Lord because He trusted God’s justice more than his own. In other words he took another lap while God fought his battles for him. We could all learn from his and Joshua’s example of trusting God to grant the victory while we just quietly obey His Word. Today let’s pray that God gives us the grace to see where we are trying to fight the battles that He has called us to simply walk around and wait on Him to give us the victory and then to know when it is time to move forward to claim what He has provided by His mercy and grace.
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