Messengers

I’ve been reading in book of Joshua and learning more than I thought I would about God’s character and about what my response to God should be. For instance, in Joshua 5 and 6, God gives the order to conquer Jericho. So Joshua goes out to look at Jericho and runs into a mighty warrior with a drawn sword. At first Joshua doesn’t know what to make of this warrior. He asks, “Are you with me or with my enemies?” The warrior answers, “Neither. I’m with God.”

Then the warrior tells Joshua how God wants Israel to proceed in conquering Jericho. The passage doesn’t tell us what Joshua’s initial response was but if it had been me, I’d probably have laughed and thought it was a joke! The soldiers of Israel were to walk around Jericho once a day for six days. Just march around the city (the city was about 700 yards around, so it would be possible to have the whole of Israel’s army walk around the city within a couple of hours). On the seventh day Israel would walk around the city seven times, play trumpets and shout. Seems silly, but that’s what the messenger/warrior from God told Joshua to do.

And it worked. The walls of Jericho fell down and the Israelites were able to go straight in and conquer the city.

Sometimes I feel like God sends me messengers with ridiculously silly “suggestions” for me to follow. God puts wise and godly people in my life to help me know the best ways to proceed. Sometimes the suggestions I get are simple, so simple they seem ridiculous. But they are also, usually, practical. And they work. For instance, one “message” given to me was to get enough (eight hours) sleep. Another was to get up at a working-person’s time (6:30 a.m.) to start my day off. Another was to get my sunlamp out and set up now that the days are getting shorter again. All are simple. All are things that would not seem to make much difference in my normal fall depression. But when I follow the suggestions, it works.