That Settles It
In the last few days I’ve been pondering God’s will and how it works together with our expectations, wants and desires. Conveniently, I remembered tuning into on Family Worship Center service where Gabe Swaggart was ministering from Joshua 6.
There the Israelite were given the instruction from God through Joshua to march around Jericho for seven days. Just marching around it in their multitude, doing absolutely nothing but moving in the formation they were directed.
Going over the occurrences in the preceding chapters it is obvious that the Israelite and even the people of Jericho anticipated a fierce battle, a battle they weren’t sure of winning, in other to pass through the land. I imagine the mind of the people when Joshua came back from communing with God and telling them what they had been instructed to do. :You know, yeah we were anticipating a bloody battle which we’d have most likely won, by God’s grace, but God just wants us to march around the city once for six days and then six times on the seventh day. Plus, on the first six days we’re to do our march quietly, no praying, no chanting, no nothing, just walk about the city, in plain sight, quietly until the last march on the seventh day when we get to scream our lungs out and then the walls will give way.”
Gabe, in his sermon pointed out at this point, that it was the most unlikely battle strategy, one that no military regime ever makes reference to because it makes absolutely no sense. The Israelite probably did the walk without incidence the first three days and on day four there must have been some skepticism, I mean, they were human after all.
God’s thoughts towards us, as we know through the word, is for good to give us an expected end, an end He alone knows. The walk around Jericho makes no logical sense but God’s ways are not our ways. One key thing to note at the end of Joshua 5 was Joshua meeting the “Commander of the Lord’s army” Who instructed him about Jericho’s conquest. Now, here’s the point I want to make, our faith as God’s children is in the death and resurrection of Christ, this faith confounds logic and whatever mystery there may be that’s why the fall of Jericho is recorded as is. So we know that when God says it, it doesn’t have to make sense to us, our duty is to believe and obey.
The highlight though is “GOD SAYING IT”. God speaks to His children in many different ways and forms and so you may be instructed by the Commander of the Lord’s army, by a still small voice, through the word of God (the Bible), through counsel, through intuition (that is inspiration from the Holy Spirit)- however God speaks to you per time. Properly discern the speaker and once you identify God’s voice run with it, stay with it, obey to the letter. Don’t walk in your own understanding, don’t interpret it as it is convenient for you, don’t “maybe” God’s instructions/direction- if it makes absolutely no sense to you still stay with Him. Seek Him further on the issue until He makes it clear to you, there’s room for that cause we shouldn’t follow blindly but rather by faith.
The process to God’s will may not always make logical sense, it may not soothe us immediately, it may not appeal to us, it may not even lead to our expected destination but it is always good for us. And, the end does justify the means where God’s will is concerned, just obey. If God said it, that settles it!
