Walls

From 11/28/09...

I've been thinking about walls. I've spent my whole life building them thicker and deeper to protect myself from the outside world. But what I really did was build a wall around my heart, and then I couldn't get to it either. It reminded me of the Israelites and Jericho. God asked them to feel like idiots when they got to that city - and not just for a few moments - for a week. I can imagine some of them were questioning.. How in the world could they trust God? Sure, He parted the Red Sea, but look at what else He'd done. He had made them be slaves for four hundred years. Just ask the African Americans - they'll tell you how hard that is to get over! Then, after a few miracles, He had made them wander in the wilderness for forty years just because they hadn't been capable of trusting Him. Often we're so hard on the Israelites, but I can relate. Sure, God had done some miracles, but He had also allowed some bad stuff to happen. Maybe there was a reason for some of it, but some of the stuff they had gone through would be hard to get over. I would have felt like, "God, I'm supposed to trust you, but you let my ancestors become slaves." I think that the people wanted to trust God, and had made progress, but there was a wall there. There was a wound. They made the choice, however, to step out in faith. They knew anything was better than going back into the wilderness. They stepped out- and the walls came tumbling down!