What promise are you praying around? What miracle are you marching around?
What is your Jericho?
– Mark Batterson (The Circle Maker)
Mike isn’t very much of a reader. I love to read and can never get enough. Once in a while, however, I pick up a book, start reading and then decide mid-page that it’s good enough to ask him to read it with me. The Circle Maker is one of those books.
When my kids were in high school, I loved attending their Friday morning pep rallies. The skits were funny, the school spirit was at its peak, everyone was dressed in school colors, and the drums played – revving the crowd into a winning attitude frenzy! I loved it. It was loud. It was exciting.
Sometimes you just knew that the pep rally was the living, breathing precursor to the win.
I wonder if it was a little like that for Joshua and his marching band of Israelites. God told Joshua to direct the people to march once a day for six days, and then to march seven times around Jericho on the seventh day. After that, God promised, the city would be delivered into their hands. (Read the full story here.) On the seventh day, like a pepped-up rally crowd who had held back as long as they could, God’s people became a loud, enthused and determined trumpet-blowing bunch who marched against the “other team” until the victory was theirs. The walls came a’tumblin’ down.
So, here’s the million dollar question from Mark Batterson:
What is your Jericho?
God’s still doing what he did for Mr. Joshua and his band of marchers. If we don’t believe that, we might as well give up and give in and “go on home.”
Mike and I both came from divorced parents and fractured homes. Multiple marriages, blended families, and some pretty ugly stuff. So, when we got married, we figured we had been in the school of hard knocks enough to know how to raise perfect kids….under the tutelage of our perfect marriage, of course. Neither our marriage nor our kids turned out to be perfect.
While we have marched around and collapsed a few “securely barred” barriers with our wall-eyed shouts, there are still more that need to do some tumblin.’
When we first moved to Austin, my aunt and uncle had tickets to a UT football game and invited us to go. My favorite part was the 600-member half-time alumni band performance. It was amazing what they accomplished on the football field, in sync, in unity and in symphony.
Maybe it’s time for a good ol’ pep rally.
Who do you need to pray with, march with and shout with as you watch the walls tumble? If it’s brick by brick, so be it. If it’s a huge, earth-shattering miracle, bring it on. Does someone need a job? Let’s march. Is there a stronghold that is holding someone back from their God-given destiny? Let’s march. Can you hear the drum line? Here come the trumpets. Now, shout! The walls just might come a’tumblin’ down.
Encouraging intentional adventure and a lot of marching with the band,
PS – What’s your Jericho? What walls need to crumble?
