Just Keep Walking

I know a lot of people in life when they are going through a hard time or difficult season like to have a song to anchor themselves to. They will just immerse themselves in a song and sing it over themselves until they see a breakthrough come. And I think that's great.

However, as hard as it may be for those of you who really know me to believe, I have never been that way. I don't cling to a song while I wait on God to show up. Mainly because there are too many good songs out there and I just want to listen to them all.

No, for me, I hold on to stories. Stories of the great heroes of faith who stood in the face of adversity, and held onto their hope and trust in the Father and persevered. I reread them, over and over, just praying for my faith to equal and even exceed theirs as I trust my Father to bring me through my own struggle and times of waiting.

I think the most significant time for me was about three years ago. I had been anxiety free for years. I was so sure that God had healed me drastically and that I was free. When out of nowhere, anxiety hit me like a linebacker. I was down. I was broken. I was completely defeated. I was so angry. I had just been talking about how God had set me free of this and then all of a sudden, it all came crashing down on me again. I needed something. I needed answers. But I was getting none.

When I finally came to the end of myself, I cried out to God for something, anything, to give me hope that everything was going to be okay. In that lonely moment, He reminded me of Jericho.

Seems like a weird story for anxiety right? But as I dove in, I realized that it had so much more to do with me and my current state than I ever could have seen with my own eyes.

If you're a church kid like me, then you know the story. If you didn't grow in church, I'll give a brief overview, but you can find the full story in Joshua chapter 6.

The story goes like this: God had promised the children of Israel that they would inherit a certain stretch of land. It was theirs, they just had to take it. Joshua was now their leader after taking over for Moses, and he would lead them into their Promised Land. There was just one problem, the land that God had prepared for them was currently occupied, and they were not going to give up their land without a fight. Israel wasn't a fighting nation. They were nomads. They were wanderers who had only 40 years before been freed slavery to the Egyptians. On paper, they would never be able to conquer these established nations. But God is not an on paper God.

God tells them that He will take care of them. That this city, Jericho, would not stand in their way. They would defeat them. The only condition was that they had to do it God's way. So Joshua listens, and the Lord tells them that He wants them to gather the army along with seven priests, march to Jericho, and then walk around the city. Just walk. For six days He just wants them to walk around the city, once a day, just walk. The seventh day, they are to walk around it seven times, and then shout. That is the battle plan. There's no sneak attack at night. There's no running in on horse back, arrows and swords flying, and kill them all. Don't set them on fire or build a giant horse as a gift and sneak in. Nope. Just walk.

And so, that's what they did. They took the army and the priests, and they walked for six days. Then the seventh, they circled seven times. They blew the trumpets and shouted their victory cry, and the walls fell. The city was destroyed by the power of God that rode in on their faith. Then, and only then, they took the city, plundered it, and conquered it.

So what does this have to do with anxiety? And what does this story have to do with you? I'm glad you asked because I was going to tell you whether you did or not.

The point is this, keep walking. My anxiety felt impossible. I never thought that I would be able to overcome it. I couldn't fight it. I was never going to win on my own. But God told me to walk. To walk around my anxiety. In the face of the impossible, I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I had to pick up my trumpet and circle the impossible until the right time arose for me to shout for victory. When the right time came, my Jericho came crashing down and my Promised Land of peace, even in the midst of chaos, would be mine for the taking. But I was never going to get it until I walked.

Maybe you're in an impossible situation. Maybe there is a promise that God has given you but you can't see it. There's a Jericho in your way and you don't see how you're ever going to get to the other side. Can I charge you with this? Just keep walking.

I know you want to know, what does that mean or even look like practically? I'll tell you. It's all about not letting the impossibility keep you in bondage to doubt. It looks simple really. You wake up and open the Word of God and open your heart to Him. Let Him speak to you. You get on your knees and you surrender you heart and your day and your every step to Him, whether you feel like it or not. You turn on some worship music and you sing. Sing your way through the pain. You thank God for what He is going to do that you still can't see. You go to the gym or school or work or wherever, and you live your life. You just keep pressing on. You keep persevering, even when impossibility is closing in all around you. You just keep walking.

That's what I had to do. I woke up, usually threw up from the anxiety, and then I got out my Bible and sought the Lord. I journaled. I thanked God for what He was going to do. I loved Him. I kept persevering in my faith. I kept following Him because I knew that He was all I had. He was the only thing that was worth it. I knew I could have given up. I could have stopped walking at any point that I wanted to. I had that choice. But I wasn't going to let the enemy win. I wasn't going to let him keep me from what God had promised me.

And I just want to plead with you, don't let him win either. You don't have to let Jericho keep you from your Promise Land. If God promised it, then He will make it happen. But He is just waiting on you to walk. He's looking for you to do it His way.

Maybe God promised you healing, but cancer is still looking you in the eye. Maybe God promised provision in the form of a job, but it's six months later and no matter how many applications you've sent out, you're still unemployed. Maybe God promised you a spouse, but you're now going on two years without even having one date. Maybe He promised you a baby, but you just left the fifth doctor and the news is still the same. Can I ask you something? Will you just keep walking? Will you just keep trusting?

I'm not telling you it won't be hard. Think about Israel, they had to walk around a whole city 7 days in a row. That couldn't have been fun or easy. But they persisted. The kept going. And when the time was right, God told them to shout, and the walls fell. I wish that I could say that I'm always good at this. I'm not. There are times I let fear get the best of me. But the minute I decide to walk again, God is there.

One thing that I didn't mention in the overview was this, when Israel walked, they took the Ark of the Covenant with them. The Ark was a symbol of the presence of God. In fact, in the temple when the cloud of God would come down, it would rest on the mercy seat which was on the Ark. They didn't leave God behind, but they took Him with them into their impossibility.

It's easy to fall into routine and leave the presence behind. It's easy to get up and go to work and live life like a zombie and never even realize that you left the Ark at home. Now obviously, I'm not saying that you can walk out of God's presence, because you can't. God promised to never leave or forsake us, so you can believe that He is always there. But what you can do is become unaware of His presence. If the Israelites had left the Ark at the camp, God would have been with them, but they wouldn't have seen Him there with them. The Ark wasn't transporting God to Jericho. It was a physical reminder to Israel that they already had God with them in their journey. It was to keep them constantly aware that the Lord was there, fighting for them.

You need an Ark. You need an awareness that the Lord is always with you, fighting for you. You have to seek Him with your whole heart, and there you will find Him. Don't ever become so complacent in life that you lose sight of the One who is able to do the impossible. If you leave the presence out of it, the shout will just echo off the walls back into your ears. But when you take the Ark in your arms and carry it around your Jericho, then your shout, which God will reveal in it's proper time, will send the power of your Father into your impossible, and the walls will fall. You just have to keep walking, with the Ark, until the ground that surrounds your Jericho is saturated with the presence. And when that happens, the impossible will no longer have any ground to stand on.