Faithful Obedience

You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days. Joshua 6:3 (NLT)

Jericho; a veritable stronghold. Its walls were some of the strongest the Israelites had ever seen: virtually indomitable, tall and wide enough to incorporate houses, guarded by soldiers day and night, sealed with strong gates.

But instead of engaging in combat, Joshua instructed his men to march around the town once a day for six days, then walk around Jericho seven times on the seventh day. Mind you, Joshua’s soldiers were trained for hand-to-hand combat. Their palms were itching to wield their sharpened swords. Yet, rather than fight, these skilled warriors were told to parade around the city walls. That’s like asking a professional basketball player to clean the locker rooms or expecting a successful surgeon to man the phones in his clinic. Surely, they questioned the wisdom of God’s plan.

Trudging around a wall for six days isn’t all that glamorous. It’s dusty, humbling, and undignified. But God had a purpose for the plodding. He was teaching the Israelites faithful obedience. Trust and obey—such a difficult task, especially when we’re down in the dirt and grime.

At times, God asks the same of us. The day-to-day of caring for a child or an elderly parent, driving the carpool, or washing endless piles of dirty clothes can test our sense of purpose, leaving us to wonder if this is all there is to life. Surely God has a bigger plan for our lives! Yet God calls us to trust and obey. Though far from glamorous, our role is not necessarily to wield a sword but to trudge around those daunting walls day after day in faithful obedience.

Do not discount the mundane. Be faithful in the every day, knowing you are right where God wants you for a season. For it is in the trusting and the obeying that our character is established in Him.