Welcome back to Term 4! If you don’t mind, I would like to start this term off with a story…

Once upon a time there was a group of people who had been wandering around in the desert for the last 40 years. Their whole lives had involved setting up camp, packing up camp and walking some more, then repeating the whole process, again, and again, and again!

Finally, they came to a place where they had been told they would live. And as they got there, they had a realisation that the place they were supposed to live, was in fact, filled with people living there. Now, they had two options here, they could A, fight and take this place by force, or B, go back to where they came from.

Now going back to where they came from meant either wandering around in the desert again, or doing what they did before that, which was being slaves. And neither of those two things sounded very inviting (I know, who wouldn’t want to wander around a desert for years or be a slave, right?). But what could they do! There were people already living in what was meant to be their home. So their leader, (let’s call him Josh) went for a walk, and while Josh was walking around trying to figure out what to do, he came across this man with a sword. As everyone does when they see a man carrying a sword, Josh went to him and asked him if he was on their side or on their enemies side. (Clearly he is wiser than I am, I would have either tried to fight him, or the more likely option, run away as quickly as I could).

This man responded saying He was the commander of the Lord’s armies. And that Josh could take his shoes off because he was on holy ground (which to me, means Josh was talking to God here. I mean, who else makes ground around them holy?). Anyway, this man told Josh that instead of fighting or running, there was a third option…

Which was to walk around this city…

                 Each day…

                                       For a week…

And then on the seventh day, do it seven times! After that, you’re going to shout, and then watch as these massive and securely built walls will simply fall down in front of you.

Just imagine with me for a second, Josh going back and telling everyone else what the new and improved plan was. They would have thought he had lost his mind! I could imagine some of them blaming it on heat stroke, or that he got too much sand in his ears and it was affecting his brain.

Either way, that was the new and improved plan. To trust in God, and do what He said, no matter how crazy it sounded.

With much encouragement and possibly some persuasive speeches, Josh got everyone to walk around Jericho. Each morning they walked, and each afternoon Josh came up with a new persuasive speech to encourage them the next day.

“Why did they have to walk even more, they had been walking around for years and years” may have been one of the complaints. After a few days, maybe some got frustrated, because they should be seeing some progress by now, I mean, some of the walls should be starting to fall or at least crumble, or a few of the bricks should be falling. Despite their wishes, nothing happened. Even so, they did it, they kept walking and on the seventh day, they shouted, and then watched and waited… And after a few moments of silence, after everyone was starting to worry that Josh had actually gone crazy. The walls fell down. God came through.

* details in this story have been added that are not in the Bible, but the story is found in Joshua 5:13-6:20 if you would like to read it for yourself.

Hope Born